With The Old Breed Sledge Summary

In With the Old Breed Sledge takes us deeply into the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa, and he gives the readers a sense of what he and the other soldiers felt throughout the battles. Throughout the book Sledge names his chapters descriptively and accordingly. When first reading Sledge’s chapter titles you may not understand it, but when you read more into the chapter it will become clear of what the chapter title represents.

Chapter 10 is named “Into the Abyss”, this chapter is where K/3/5 head south and move into active combat zones where they are under heavy fire. The chapter title adds a bit of mystery to the text because it makes you ask “What abyss are they entering?” or “What’s going to happen in the abyss?” During this experience Sledge

Throughout the book Sledge talks about the reality of the war and it is vividly portrayed in this chapter. Sledge most likely named the chapter “Of Mud and Maggots” because earlier in the book he stated that Okinawa was very muddy and filthy, even worse than Peleliu. Therefore, from the chapter title we can infer that the chapter will be about how disgusting and disturbing war can be. The chapter title gives the chapter a sort of disgusting tone, because when people think of mud and maggots it's usually not a pleasing thought. In the chapter Sledge sees a marine and says that “He was filthy like all of us, but even through a thickly mud-caked dark beard I could see he had fine features.” (Pg. 242) this is the first instance in the chapter where Sledge uses mud and he uses it to describe how filthy a marine is, this shows how much mud was at Okinawa and how soldiers had to deal with it no matter what*. In Okinawa, Sledge and the soldiers encountered some horrible weather, “The weather was chilly and mud, mud, mud was everywhere. We slipped and slid along the trails with every step we took.” (Pg. 248) this is another instance where Sledge talks about mud and it shows how the mud impacted them and increased the difficulty of battle. Later in the chapter when Sledge was going up a hill he slipped and slid down the hill into a hole filled with muddy water and a skeletal body covered in maggots, he then had to scrap the maggots off of his clothes with his knife. This scene alone shows how disturbing the conditions at Okinawa were, the mud continued to get worse as the battle went on and there were maggots