Patriotism and Morality Theme Analysis

Eugene Sledge’s desire to take part in World War II derives from his patriotic attachment to the U.S. Moved by a strong commitment to protect the country he loves, which he views as a moral duty, Sledge also finds that combat experience causes him to develop a visceral hatred of the Japanese enemy. This hostility derives less from political considerations than from the Japanese’s vicious fighting techniques, which Sledge considers unnecessarily cruel. Throughout the war, Sledge struggles to reconcile two conflicting attitudes: his embrace of morality and his need to destroy the enemy in a violent way. Ultimately, if Sledge fights hard to win the battles on Peleliu and Okinawa, he also remains attached to ethical norms of fair treatment, and refuses to degrade the Japanese in the same way they might torture the Americans (and other Americans might torture them). He aims to show that although war breeds a natural desire to kill the enemy, there are moral limits to the kind of brutality that is acceptable in armed combat.

Sledge believes that, as an American, it is his duty to fight against the Japanese. Sledge recalls the reasons behind his military engagement: “Until the millenium arrives and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one’s responsibilities and to be willing to make sacrifices for one’s country—as my comrades did. As the troops used to say, ‘If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.’ With privilege goes responsibility.” Sledge thus conceives of fighting as a moral obligation, meant to protect the ideal life one believes in.

Along with this patriotic conviction, it is the direct experience of being shot at that convinces Sledge of the necessity to kill the Japanese. Although Sledge initially feels pity for the Japanese corpses he sees on Peleliu, he finally accepts that war is so cruel that one must accept to follow a simple principle: “them or us.” The emotional toll of seeing one’s companions die or become wounded also serves as powerful motivation to crush the enemy at all cost. In addition, Sledge and his companions develop a deep hatred of the Japanese. This attitude results in large part from what Sledge views as the Japanese’s excessive brutality. For example, the Japanese are famous for taking no prisoners and torturing Americans to death. On Peleliu, Sledge also sees that Japanese soldiers have mutilated three American corpses, cutting off their body parts in horribly brutal ways. Witnessing such gratuitous cruelty on dead bodies strikes Sledge to the core. This episode serves as a decisive moment, a turning point in which he concludes that he will no longer feel compassion for the Japanese enemy.

Nevertheless, Sledge still tries to retain a sense of what constitutes morally acceptable behavior in a combat zone. He determines that, although killing is necessary and inevitable, some cruelty is gratuitous and should be avoided. After witnessing the Japanese’s brutality firsthand, Sledge is moved not to imitate them but, on the contrary, to remain committed to what he perceives as the Marines’ superior moral values. One day, he sees a wounded old Japanese woman in Okinawa who begs him to kill her, so as to put her out of her suffering. Instead of doing so, Sledge goes to seek medical help. After a few minutes, he returns with a medic to discover that another Marine has killed the woman. This drives Sledge into a rage and he angrily tells the soldier that their job is to “kill Nips, not old women!” Despite his use of an offensive term to refer to the Japanese, Sledge remains committed to the idea that he is fighting an armed enemy, not the entire Japanese people. He makes keeping innocent civilians from harm his ethical duty.

At the same time, Sledge knows that he is not impervious to brutal behavior himself. The Marines regularly strip Japanese corpses to search for “souvenirs,” often taking the Japanese’s gold teeth. While Sledge is initially disturbed by this practice, one day he decides that he too should try to keep a gold tooth for himself. Doc Caswell, a friend of his, convinces him not to do so, arguing that gold teeth carry germs. Reflecting on this episode later, Sledge realizes that Caswell was not actually concerned about hygiene, but was trying to keep Sledge from becoming callous and insensitive to violence. Similarly, when one of Sledge’s companions tries to keep a Japanese’s dead hand as a “souvenir,” Sledge and other Marines convince the man that this is disgusting, and that he should leave the hand on Peleliu. In both cases, communal intervention plays an important role in encouraging Marines to understand the limits of what constitutes acceptable violence. Such episodes put the enemy’s brutality in perspective, suggesting that anyone is capable of unnecessarily vicious acts, such as degrading an enemy’s corpse. Sledge’s struggle to remain in control of his own brutality reveals just how difficult it is to maintain a strong moral compass in the midst of such death and destruction.

Sledge’s understanding of war thus combines two beliefs: the knowledge that war is brutal and uncivilized, but that one has a duty to defend one’s own country in any possible way. The horrible conditions of life at the front occasionally leads Sledge to feel bitter toward politicians who describe war in terms of nobility and self-sacrifice, when the Marines are in fact immersed in horrific situations, far from ideal visions of war. All Sledge can do, he believes, is hope (perhaps naively) that political leaders will be respectful enough to limit the duration of war as much as possible in order to keep fighters from suffering any more than is strictly necessary. In the meantime, though, Sledge looks beyond the particular circumstances of national politics, defining the U.S. as a land he loves and for which he is ready to kill and die.