This book was named the Best War Story ever Told by Men's Journal Magazine.

The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because, like war, the battle descriptions are so unrelenting in the horrorible details. If you've got much of an imagination, you'd better have a strong stomach when you're reading this one. For instance, digging a fox hole THROUGH a rotting Japanese corpse, which, along with excrement, and Marine corpses were everywhere. The Marines stripping gold teeth from Japanese corpses, at least one of whom was not a corpse, but alive.

It is the story of a Marine enlistee in WWII from boot camp to the worst two battles of the Pacific, Peleliu and Okinawa.

It is a true and more modern version of "The Red Badge of Courage". Well written and unbelievably detailed.

The author wrote this book many years later for his family to understand his war experience from daily notes he kept hidden in his Bible and his wife urged him to get it published. The mere fact that the author went through what he did without getting wounded is absolutely amazing.

A great read with the most realistic view of the horror and heroism of war I've read.

"During the course of the long fighting on Okinawa, unlike at Peleliu, we got numerous replacement lieutenants. They were wounded or killed with such regularity that we rarely knew anything about them other than a code name and saw them on their feet only once or twice."

An excellent book, it with, if memory serves, five others were the background to the TV series " The Pacific." Very few punches pulled, told like it is. Every bleeding heart who squawks about the A-Bombs being dropped on Japan should be compelled to read it.

I haven't read the book (yet), but just recently saw "The Pacific" for the first time via Amazon Prime. It was an amazing story that in my opinion should be required for all American students, especially in today's social climate.

I'll be picking this one up....