For the week ending June 5, Eugene B. Sledge’s memoir With The Old Breed ranked #5 on The New York Times Best Sellers List (Paperback Nonfiction). With The Old Breed has been among the top ranking books on the Best Sellers List for eight consecutive weeks. First published in 1981, With The Old Breed has received endless praise as one of the best accounts of World War II battle in the Pacific Theater. HBO used material from With The Old Breed as the basis for the miniseries The Pacific.
By Dr. Malcolm R. Braid
University of Montevallo Professor Emeritus of Biology
To better understand my relationship with Dr. Eugene B. Sledge, it may be helpful to know that I come from a military family myself, my father having been an Ordnance officer who served on Admiral Nimitz’s staff during WW II and who helped plan what munitions would be necessary for the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and ultimately Japan itself. Dad eventually was medically retired as a full Colonel after 26 years of service. One of my grandfathers retired also as a Colonel after 36 years of service. In fact, my mother was born in what used to be Fort McAllen, Texas, as my grandfather was in the U.S. Army Cavalry chasing after Pancho Villa. My older brother and I were in the U.S. Army, and my nephew served for eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps which included a tour of duty in Iraq.
Photo courtesy of the Auburn University Libraries
I began my undergraduate career at the University of Montevallo (then Alabama College) in 1965. It was during my spring, 1966 semester that I had Dr. Sledge as my General Zoology professor. I found him to be an intelligent, fair, and likeable person. Eventually, I would take at least four courses with him. A group of us Biology Majors became very close to Dr. Sledge during this time, and we began to call him “Uncle Eugene,” as he was an excellent mentor and father figure to us. He advised us not only about academic matters, but about other life concerns as well. (more…)
Eugene B. Sledge was a University of Montevallo biology professor whose remarkable World War II memoir With the Old Breed has been acclaimed by such luminaries as Stephen Ambrose, Ken Burns, John Keegan, and Paul Fussell as the best war memoir ever written by an enlisted man. His book, an account of the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa, along with Robert Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow, form the basis for the current HBO series The Pacific.
Please join us for a discussion on personal experience and its portrayal in life histories, formal histories, and community memory as evidenced in E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed and the book’s use as a source today through the History Channel, Ken Burn’s The War and most recently HBO’s The Pacific.
Monday, April 19th at 7:00
Parnell Memorial Library Theater
Montevallo, Alabama
The evening will include a performance by the University of Montevallo Chamber Singers and discussion moderated by Clark Hultquist (history professor), Ruth Truss (history professor), Jim Day (history professor), and Kouri Allen (UM graduate student) with special guest Henry Sledge (son of Dr. Sledge).
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama’s top officials on Thursday honored two Mobilians whose World War II service in the Marines has become famous through television specials.
The Spirit of America awards recognized Dr. Sidney Phillips and the late Eugene Sledge.
Gov. Bob Riley made the presentations to Phillips and Sledge’s widow, Jeanne, in a House chamber packed with leaders of the Alabama House and Senate.
Click here to watch a video of R.V. Burgin and his actor, Martin McCann, during their appearance on the NBC “Today” Show that aired Friday, April 9, 2010.
