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Helmet for My Pillow
 
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Helmet for My Pillow [Paperback]

Robert Leckie (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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“Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem.  Robert Leckie’s theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who—somehow—survived.”—Tom Hanks


“One hell of a book! The real stuff that proves the U.S. Marines are the greatest fighting men on earth!”—Leon Uris, author of Battle Cry

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Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic training on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war’s fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the defense of their country. 

    From the live-for-today rowdiness of marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie’s hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no reader untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.



Now producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, the men behind Band of Brothers, have adapted material from Helmet for My Pillow for HBO’s epic miniseries The Pacific, which will thrill and edify a whole new generation.
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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
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4.6 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An Eloquent Account of Wartime Experience, Oct 26 2001
By 
George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Helmet For My Pillow (Military History (Ibooks)) (Paperback)
Robert Leckie gives a gripping first person narrative in which he seemingly pulls no punches about life in the mud and among the flawed but heroic men of the First Marine Division. He recounts hardship, cameraderie, and combat in an engaging, almost lyrical, fashion. I came away from "Helmet" with a renewed respect for the sacrifice of the Greatest Generation. Uncommon valor was truly a common virtue. Leckie's story will make any 18 year old want to march down to the recruiting station and sign up.

Leckie's story dovetails quite nicely with another memoir, "With the Old Breed at Peliliu and Okinawa," the account of another First Division rifleman, E.B. Sledge. The First Marine Division's WWII career began in the jungles of Guadalcanal, went through New Britain and on to Peliliu and ended at Okinawa. Leckie was in at the beginning, but his combat career ended when he was wounded in the Hell of Peliliu. Sledge's combat career began at Peliliu and ended on Okinawa. Together the two give you an enlisted man's eye view of all the First Division's campaigns.

Sledge doesn't turn a phrase as well as Leckie, but his description of combat will make your blood run cold in a way that "Helmet" does not. Any 18 year old reading "Old Breed" will want to tear up his enlistment papers. It seems odd that Leckie, obviously the more accomplished wordsmith, does not paint as horrific a picture of combat as Sledge. Could it be that Leckie has shied away from revealing the full extent of the hardship of combat? Or could it be that Peliliu and Okinawa served up privation and hardship on a much grander scale than Guadalcanal and New Britain? Read both books and decide for yourself. For all its stark description, "Old Breed" will engender the same kind of respect for the men of the First Division that the reader takes away from "Helmet."

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4.0 out of 5 stars Review--Helmet for My Pillow, Jan 21 2011
This review is from: Helmet for My Pillow from Parris Island to the Pacific (Paperback)
Robert Leckie was an excellent writer. This book is especially effective you saw the Pacific series. Many incidents he mentions are portrayed in the TV series.
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4.0 out of 5 stars A Warrior's Saga, Jun 23 2001
This review is from: Helmet For My Pillow (Military History (Ibooks)) (Paperback)
Leckie's talent as a writer is surpassed only by the visceral drama of his story. His story is riveting as he takes the reader from boot through his participation in the 1st Marine Division's battles in the Pacific through Peleliu. He literally lived out of his ruck, never seeing his sea bag, for over two years. Leckie is a craftsman, and entertains too with his tales of debauchery in Australia, tempered with the vocabulary of an earlier, more decorous America. He also warns, "Keep it up, America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are only fit for intellectual pigs. Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it."

The thoughtful military reader will be interested in the differences between today's warrior culture and that of half a century ago. Leckie's story is purely from his vantage point, and a great read in it's own right, but don't expect perspective or analysis. Anyone interested in Leckie's story would probably also enjoy With the Old Breed by Sledge. Sledge was also at Peleliu and went on to Okinawa with the 1st Marine Division. I found Sledge's story more gripping, visceral and grim, ranking with The Forgotten Soldier by Sajer as some of the best chronicling of war.

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