EB Sledge and Peggy Terry

E.B. Sledge was a soldier in the Marines, and had fought at Guadalcanal. He described the courage and bravery that the young men possessed, despite the fact that "eighty percent of the division in the Guadalcanal campaign was less than twenty-one years of age."(197) He cited how he felt that there were two different wars. On the front lines "you don't come off until you are wounded or killed." (197) But despite this harsh reality of war, men had the courage to continue fighting and risking their lives. An example of this was how Sledge described how  he had " never heard of self-inflicted wounds out there." (197) To combat these hardships the soldier on the front line "develops this insensitivity because it is the only way he can cope." (199) He then goes on to tell horrific stories of war that had transformed mild-mannered men into quasi-savages.

Peggy Terry was a woman from rural Kentucky, who had worked in a shell factory creating rounds of ammunition. She describes how bad the conditions were for her and others as her mom was fired when her "mother took sick and died and Mamma asked for time off and they told her no." (191) She describes how little the plant workers knew of "human rights, union rights" (191) She describes how her world was " very small" (192) and that the factory job was the "first time [her] mother ever worked at anything except in the fields" (192). The Homefront after the war was jubilent, people were giving away free loaves of bread, and women got pregnant celebrating their husband's return. However she had also been turned against her faith. She tells of how 'the Bible says, Thou shalt not kill, it doesn't say, Except in a time of war." (195).

 The homefront was happy that the war had ended, but it was also upset for the tragedies that happened during the war. The war had a large impact on the lives of the the soldiers, and EB Sledge's stories of war were jarring to think about. War is a troubling experience, and the horror stories really make you question whether war, despite how noble, is worth people dying and going through these traumatic experiences over.