E.B. Sledge

After growing up in Mobile, Alabama, Eugene Sledge attended a military college but soon volunteered to enter the Marine Corps in December 1942. As a Marine infantryman, he took part in the battle of Peleliu in September 1944 and the battle of Okinawa in April 1945. These experiences marked him for life. Although he survived the war without a single wound, it took him years to recover from the psychological trauma of combat. Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Sledge served for four months in Beijing, China, as part of the American occupation force. Sledge was then honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 1946 with the rank of corporal, but struggled to readjust to civilian life. He ultimately decided to transform a lifelong passion for bird-watching into a profession, graduating from the University of Florida with a doctorate in zoology. He then became a professor at Alabama College, where he taught biology. Sledge is best known for his literary memoirs recounting his experience during World War II: With the Old Breed (published forty years after the war, in 1981) and China Marine: An Infantryman’s Life After World War II (2002), which relates his post-combat return to civilian life.