尤金·史赖吉

尤金·庞杜兰特·史赖吉（Eugene Bondurant Sledge，1923年11月4日—2001年3月3日）是一名美国的名教授与作家，出生于阿拉巴马州的一个富裕家庭。他描述参与第二次世界大战经历的回忆录《老兵长存》，被拍摄成著名迷你电视剧《太平洋战争》。

生平

尤金·史赖吉的亲戚及长辈几乎都有参加南北战争时期支持使用黑奴的美利坚邦联。他的父亲是名医生，曾在第一次世界大战中担任军医。第二次世界大战期间，尤金本已就读于马里昂军事学院，但害怕赶不上参战，而退学加入海军陆战队。因为心脏有杂音，他从军的计划还一度受阻，直到1942年末才顺利地加入海军陆战队。战后他获得生物学博士，终其一生都在大学授课。1989年，他被马里昂军事学院授予荣誉上校军衔和学位。2001年去世。

服役部队

尤金服役于美国陆战1师5团3营K连，他在陆战队学校学的是操作迫击炮，是一名迫炮兵。

著作

著有战争回忆录《老兵长存》。于1981年出版。

影响

根据尤金·史赖吉的回忆录《老兵长存》，著名导演斯蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格与影星汤姆·汉克斯历时7年时间，将其拍摄制作成HBO著名迷你剧《太平洋》，尤金·史赖吉则由出演过《侏罗纪公园》的男影星约瑟夫·马杰罗饰演。

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 used as source material for the Ken Burns PBS documentary The War (2007), as well as the HBO miniseries The Pacific (2010), in which he is portrayed by Joseph Mazzello.

Biography

Early life

Eugene Bondurant Sledge was born on November 4, 1923, in Mobile, Alabama, to Edward Simmons Sledge, a physician, and Mary Frank Sturdivant Sledge, dean of women students at Huntingdon College. In 1935 his family moved to Georgia Cottage in Mobile. He graduated from Murphy High School in Mobile in the spring of 1942.

His older brother, Edward Simmons Sledge II, was born on September 10, 1920, and was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army after graduating as a cadet from The Citadel. During World War II, he served on the Western Front as part of the 741st Tank Battalion, fighting at Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge. Edward II was awarded three Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, and a Silver Star during his service, and left the Army with the rank of Major. He also provided an interview to Cornelius Ryan while Ryan was writing the script for The Longest Day.

Eugene was a sickly child, and lost two years of schooling due to rheumatic fever which left him with a heart murmur. However, once the condition subsided, his family encouraged him to enroll in college rather than join the military, believing that he would become "cannon fodder" as he described it. His close childhood friend Sidney Phillips also wrote to Sledge from Guadalcanal, and urged him not to enlist.

Military career

In the fall of 1942, Sledge enrolled in the Marion Military Institute, in Marion, Alabama, but then chose to volunteer for the U.S. Marine Corps in December 1942. As a compromise with his parents, who requested he seek out a technical officer's position, Sledge was placed in the V-12 officer training program and was sent to the Georgia Institute of Technology. However, he and half of his detachment intentionally flunked out by their first semester so they would be allowed to enter immediate service as enlistees and not "miss the war".

Once he was out of school, he was assigned to duty as an enlisted man in K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (K/3/5), where he served with Corporal R.V. Burgin and Private First Class Merriell "Snafu" Shelton. He and Phillips briefly reunited with each other when Sledge was transported to Pavuvu two weeks before Phillips returned home via a lottery draw.

Sledge rose to the rank of corporal 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 as a rifleman.

During his service, Sledge kept notes of what happened in his pocket-sized New Testament. When the war ended, he compiled these notes which would, many years later, become the memoir With the Old Breed. After being posted to Beijing after the war, he was discharged from the Marine Corps in February 1946 with the rank of corporal.

Post-war

After the war ended, Sledge attended Auburn University (then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute), where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration in the summer of 1949.

Sledge had a hard time readjusting to civilian life:

As I strolled the streets of Mobile, civilian life seemed so strange. 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.