Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die : Memoirs of a World War I Marine

Rating:
Summary: A poetic and pungent battlefield memoir
Review: "Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine," by Elton E. Mackin, has an introduction and annotations by George B. Clark and a foreword by Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, USMC (Ret.). Clark's introduction notes that Mackin was born in New York State in 1898 and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1917. This book evokes the combat experiences of Marines in Europe during WW1.

I found this book quite stunning. The sections often read like prose poems or very short stories. Mackin is graphic in describing wartime violence and suffering, but his writing is also at times quite beautiful. The narrative opens with the Marines preparing to advance upon German-held Belleau Wood. Mackin follows in particular the career of "Slim," a Marine who becomes a runner (battlefield messenger).

Mackin covers a number of subjects: encounters with German troops, relations with civilians, relations between "old-timers" and green replacement troops, and the dangers of the runners' job. The book contains many interesting technical details about war in that era: weapons, fortifications, poison gas, etc.

The narrator's voice is often ironic, satiric, sarcastic, and even bitter. But his voice is also humane--he sees moments of kindness and tenderness in the midst of the hell of war. At one point the author cites Walt Whitman. Like Whitman, Mackin is irreverent yet compassionate, with an eye for detail and a knack for rendering humanity in both its tragedy and beauty. This is a valuable addition to the canon of United States war literature.

Rating:
Summary: Vietnam was nothing new
Review: Mackin's book is a spare, at times profound and almost poetic evocation of the life of a Marine Corps grunt on the Western Front in World War I. The dominant theme is of how men accommodate themselves to the appalling realization that they are in a hopeless situation in which they will be killed, and there is nothing they can do to prevent it, and that no one other than their comrades will ever fully appreciate this predicament: "The folks at home will never know the truth."

Mackin writes of the thrill and terror of battle, the feelings of fear and elation, and the awe at seeing other men die: "It is always a show, no matter how terrifying."

To deal with this world of fear and death, men developed a sarcasm for weakness: "They make a bitter joke of things to cover feelings"; "We learned to close our minds to the memory of men who fell. We took the way of living day to day . . . We learned to laugh at everything in time. It carried us." Men lost their youth, and in some ways matured, and in other ways were permanently scarred: "There was no singing now . . . The faces had changed. . . . his scars would be deep, and never, never leave his eyes."

Rating:
Summary: OK - but hardly a classic
Review: Mackin's memoir of his experiences as a Marine in the First World War was good, but not great. The experiences he shares are not uncommon to fighting men in any war, which makes the book seem a little cliched. I was also irritated by his references to himself in the third person ("the kid"). With that said, however, it is one of only a handful of memoirs by Americans who served in France, and as such is worthy of attention.

Rating:
Summary: OK - but hardly a classic
Review: Mackin's memoir of his experiences as a Marine in the First World War was good, but not great. The experiences he shares are not uncommon to fighting men in any war, which makes the book seem a little cliched. I was also irritated by his references to himself in the third person ("the kid"). With that said, however, it is one of only a handful of memoirs by Americans who served in France, and as such is worthy of attention.

Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: The writing goes for a pithy Hemingway style, but falls far short of Hemingway. And some of the sections aren't interesting. But some of the book is earth-shakingly poignant. The bit that hit me was the author's describing the mind of the soldier who has seen such horror he knows God does not exist. And he makes a vow to abide by that belief. And then when he's shot and dying, the boyhood memory of a country church springs to mind and he yells, "Oh, God" and feels guilty at betraying his new found atheism.