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If you saw Ken Burn's documentary, The War or the HBO miniseries, The Pacific, then you already know about Sid Phillips. He played a major role in both by recounting his experiences as a private in a mortar platoon in the South Pacific during World War II. In this book Sid tells in detail his life in the Marine Corps. The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, seventeen year old Sid and his friend, went down to enlist in the military. There was no waiting in line at the Marine recruiter's office so he signed up. This may have been the only time in his Marine career that he didn't have to hurry up and then wait in line. The boy who entered training at Parris Island would come home a man after enduring the hell of Guadalcanal. It is a tribute to Sid's character, that his memoir dwells not on the tragedy and grief that surrounded this life, but on the rich relationships he formed. Their humor, both light and dark, helped the young Marines endure seemingly endless heat, exhaustion, deprivation, and pain in a campaign that in those early days of the war, left them feeling alone and forgotten.
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Overview
Sid Phillips knew he was a long way from his home in Mobile, Alabama, when he plunged into the jungles of Guadalcanal in August 1942. A mortarman with the same company of the 1st Marine Division as Helmet for My Pillow author Robert Leckie, Sid was a seventeen-year-old kid when he entered combat. By the time he returned home some two years later, the island fighting on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester had turned him into a man and an "Old Timer" by Marine standards.In this true story, Sid recalls his encounters ...