The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S. Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism in my opinion, from well-meaning persons who did not comprehend the magnitude of stress and horror that combat can be. The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun and high explosive shells has turned war into prolonged, subhuman slaughter. Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking, mentally and physically.
This quote accomplishes two things: 1) it vividly describes the War in the Pacific during World War II; and 2) offers a sharp rebuke to this who condemn the soldiers who fight without fighting themselves. War, as Sledge says, changes a person -- some, however, are changed much more than others. Some soldiers are relatively unaffected while they fight; others lose their humanity and often, their morals. Sledge witnessed Marines, for example, take the gold teeth out of the mouths of dead Japanese and saw that Japanese soldiers had stuffed the mutilated genitals of U.S. soldiers into their mouths. Under normal circumstances, the vast majority of humans would not stoop to this level. Because of the constant combat they are involved in, though, some do.
That's why, Sledge argues, it is patently unfair for those who have never been soldiers. War is fundamentally transformative, and it would be unfair to judge the actions of those who fight, especially considering those who enter into war want to win. War is not a cakewalk; it is not easy, or fun, or soft. It is a brutal and violent thing which changes people, so soldiers should be trained to fight efficiently and to not die -- period. Full stop.
Would the war dehumanize me so that I, too, could "field trip" enemy dead with such nonchalance?
Although this is one of Sledge's musings to himself, this quote is one of the most important in the entire book. It represents Sledges main moral dilemma: would he forgo his humanity to become a more effective fighting machine so that he could, for example, extract gold teeth from the mouths of dead Japanese soldiers, or would he work hard to retain his humanity and his morals in spite of the horrible situation he was placed into?
Ultimately, Sledge chose to be as moral as he could given the circumstances -- he would not take gold teeth out of the mouths of dead Japanese and would encourage others not to do so either. In other words, he would choose the hard way... he would be the best person he could possibly be.
