“Something in me died at Peleliu. Perhaps it was the childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that Man is basically good. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places, who do not have to endure war’s savagery, will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.”
Photo of Eugene B. Sledge and friends in 1941, said to have been taken during an expedition to find Civil War artifacts around Mobile Bay. Sledge is holding a cola and a moonpie. Sledge’s lifelong friend Sidney Phillips is on the right, with his back to the camera. The owner of the saddle-shoe on the left is unknown. The year after this picture was taken, Sledge enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.
lookashiny 