Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific--a Young Marine's Stirring Account of Combat in World War II

Highlights of Leckie's account of the war in the Pacific include the decisive battle on Guadalcanal in 1942, the antics of the Marines on R&R in Australia, and his final days of combat on Peleliu Island. It is an excellent complement to the HBO series. Whereas the HBO treatment of Guadalcanal involves a lot of confusing shooting in the dark, Leckie goes into great detail portraying just how...more

Highlights of Leckie's account of the war in the Pacific include the decisive battle on Guadalcanal in 1942, the antics of the Marines on R&R in Australia, and his final days of combat on Peleliu Island. It is an excellent complement to the HBO series. Whereas the HBO treatment of Guadalcanal involves a lot of confusing shooting in the dark, Leckie goes into great detail portraying just how difficult those 4 long months were for him and the other Marines who served there.   hide

Must read!

Leckie is a mster wordsmith. His stories are gems of excellent writing. He handles his content with a truthfullness that is gritty and smooth all at the same time. This memoir gives the reader the unvarnished truth, but Leckies language is very polished.

Not knowing anything about this book, I was expecting a more literary version of John Wayne (which I would have guiltily enjoyed anyway). I was pleasantly surprised to find much much more.

leckie pulls no punches. his observations and turn of phrase are beautiful and poignant. truly one of the best memoirs ever written.

Very moving story of the battles in the Pacific. We should not forget the sacrifice of the WW2 soldiers. Great read - highly recommended.

From time to time someone writes a war memoir that is self-glorifying drivel. Those memoirs are worthless. Of the others, there really is no way to say that one is any more "true" than another as an account of military history; after all, they are not histories, they are personal narratives, and 100 people in the same place at the same time will have 100 unique experiences and interpretations of...more

From time to time someone writes a war memoir that is self-glorifying drivel. Those memoirs are worthless. Of the others, there really is no way to say that one is any more "true" than another as an account of military history; after all, they are not histories, they are personal narratives, and 100 people in the same place at the same time will have 100 unique experiences and interpretations of it. With that said, I found that Leckie's memoir rang truer to my own experience of service and combat than any other war memoir I have read. Leckie's insights reflected a co-incidence of interests between me and him, and a commonality of how we interpreted much of what we have seen. The "polite deprecation" of civilians toward soldiers; the significance and pervasiveness of caste within the military structure; the counterintuitive value of "brig-rats" railing against that caste system; and simultaneously the disgust with those in the higher castes who, upon hearing the "shibboleth" of intellect, show pity toward you for the misfortune of serving in the infantry. That life is full of contradictions--anger against the separation of classes, but pride in knowing oneself fit to be peers with the brass, yet choosing to be a private in the line. Having more in common with officers than with your fellow enlisted-men, yet looking down upon those officers for the weakness of moral character evidenced by their needing the privileges of rank. And these ironies: excuses. All contradictory. All self-protective. All self-serving. All rationalizations. Most self-deceiving. But without them, how could one function in that world?   hide

Not as good as I'd expected given that Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg based some of their HBO mini-series, "The Pacific" on it.

Loved it. Would recommend to anyone who watched The Pacific...you get alot more insight and details from the book.