Eugene Sledge Eugene Bondurant Sledge ( November 4 , 1923 – March 3 , 2001 ) was a United States Marine , university professor , and author . His 1981 memoir " With the Old Breed : At Peleliu and Okinawa " chronicled his combat experiences during World War II and was subsequently used as source material for Ken Burns ' s PBS documentary , " The War " , as well as the HBO miniseries " The Pacific " , in which he is portrayed by Joseph Mazzello . Military career . Sledge was enrolled in the Marion Military Institute but instead chose to volunteer for the U . S . Marine Corps in December 1942 . He was placed in the V - 12 officer training program and was sent to Georgia Tech where he and half of his detachment " flunked out " so they would be allowed to serve their time as enlistees and not " miss the war " . Once he was out of school he was assigned duty as an enlisted man and was eventually assigned to K ( King ) Company , 3rd Battalion , 5th Marines , 1st Marine Division ( K / 3 / 5 ) . He achieved the rank of Private First Class in the Pacific Theater and saw combat as a 60 mm mortarman at Peleliu and Okinawa . When fighting grew too close for effective use of the mortar he served in other duties such as stretcher bearer and providing rifle fire . During his service , Sledge kept notes of what happened in his pocket sized New Testament . When the war ended , he took these notes and compiled them into the memoir that was to be known as " With the Old Breed " . After being posted to Peking after the war , he was discharged from the Marine Corps in February 1946 with the rank of Corporal . Post - war . After the war , Sledge attended Auburn University ( then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute ) where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and received a Bachelor of Science degree in the summer of 1949 . Sledge , like many other war veterans , had a hard time readjusting to civilian life . “ As I strolled the streets of Mobile , civilian life seemed so strange , ” Sledge wrote . “ People rushed around in a hurry about seemingly insignificant things . Few seemed to realize how blessed they were to be free and untouched by the horrors of war . To them , a veteran was a veteran – all were the same , whether one man had survived the deadliest combat or another had pounded a typewriter while in uniform . ” Once an avid hunter , Sledge gave up his hobby . He found that he could not endure the thought of wounding a bird and said that killing a deer felt like shooting a cow in a pasture . His father found him weeping after a dove hunt where Sledge had to kill a wounded dove and in the ensuing conversations he told his father he could no longer tolerate seeing any suffering . A key turning point in his life and career followed when his father advised him that he could substitute bird watching as a hobby . Sledge started to assist the conservation department in its banding study efforts , the origin of his well known passion for the science of ornithology . When he came to enroll at Auburn University , the clerk at the Registrar ' s office asked him if the Marine Corps taught him anything useful . Sledge replied saying " Lady , there was a killing war . The Marine Corps taught me how to kill Japs and try to survive . Now , if that don ' t fit into any academic course , I ' m sorry . But some of us had to do the killing — and most of my buddies got killed or wounded . " He found his salvation in science , it kept the flashbacks of Peleliu and Okinawa at bay . Close , constant study of nature prevented him from going mad ; however , the war stayed with him , and finally at the urging of his wife , he began to put his thoughts on paper , at last allowing him to put his horrors behind him . He returned to Auburn in 1953 where he worked as a research assistant until 1955 . That same year he graduated from API with a Master of Science degree in botany . Doctorate and later work . From 1956 to 1960 Sledge attended the University of Florida and worked as a research assistant . He published numerous papers on helminthology and in 1956 joined the Helminthological Society of Washington . He received his doctorate in biology from the University of Florida in 1960 . He was employed by the Division of Plant Industry for the Florida State Department of Agriculture from 1959 to 1962 . In the summer of 1962 , Sledge was appointed Assistant Professor of Biology at Alabama College ( now the University of Montevallo ) . In 1970 he became a professor , a position he held until his retirement in 1990 . He taught zoology , ornithology , comparative vertebrate anatomy and other courses during his long tenure there . Sledge was popular with his students , organizing field trips and collections around town . Eugene Sledge died after a long battle with stomach cancer in 2001 . He was survived by his wife of nearly 50 years , Jeanne , and their two sons , John and Henry . Bibliography . " With the Old Breed " . In 1981 , Sledge published " With the Old Breed : At Peleliu and Okinawa " , a memoir of his World War II service with the United States Marine Corps . " With the Old Breed " was reprinted in 1990 ( with an introduction by Paul Fussell ) and again in 2007 ( with an introduction by Victor Davis Hanson ) . In 1992 , Sledge was featured in the documentary film " Peleliu 1944 : Horror in the Pacific " . In April 2007 , it was announced that " With the Old Breed " , along with Robert Leckie ' s " Helmet for My Pillow " , would form the basis for the HBO series " The Pacific " , from the same producers as " Band of Brothers " . " China Marine " . A second memoir , " China Marine : An Infantryman ' s Life after World War II " , was published posthumously . Its initial hard bound edition , with foreword by Stephen E . Ambrose , was published May 10 , 2002 by University of Alabama Press and did not have the subtitle listed . It was republished in a 2003 paperback edition with the subtitle by Oxford University Press . " China Marine " discussed his postwar service in Peiping ( now known as Beijing ) , his return home to Mobile , and his recovery from the psychological trauma of warfare . Awards and decorations . Sledge was entitled to campaign participation credit ( " battle stars " ) for Capture and Occupation of the Southern Palau Islands ( Peleliu ) , and Assault and Occupation of Okinawa Gunto His decorations and medals include :