I started a new memoir today. It isn’t really a memoir, or an autobiography. The blurbs may be right, it is a first-person account. But pretty quickly, this one suggested it would stand apart:
That’s Robert Leckie in his first book, Helmet For My Pillow. I generally find memoirs interesting, though often the writing isn’t of a high quality. Leckie is writing about his time in the Pacific in World War II — so far he’s just made it out of boot camp — but he’s not just a Marine, he started out as a sports writer and became a reporter, a family man and the author of more than 20 books. The guy has chops.
Makes me wonder why I waited this long to read it. As a Marine of the First Division he fought in two of the bloodiest island campaigns of the war, and he kept those stories alive here. This book, his first, was published in 1957 and again in 2010. If you remember the HBO miniseries, The Pacific, you met Leckie. This was one of the pieces of source material for the production. Leckie died in 2001.
Here’s the news show the students shot last night:
And here’s the entertainment show, where you can learn all about what to wear in this season’s fashions and various other goings on:
I liked the sunglasses myself.
A talk show tonight, and then a late night dinner and early to rise to do it all again tomorrow!
