Summary of Robert Leckie's Helmet for My Pillow

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 I was sworn in as a marine in January 1942.

The captain who swore me in reduced the ceremony to a jumble.

We all held up our hands, and when he lowered his, we guessed we were marines.

The gunnery sergeant who became my shepherd made sure I understood what was expected of me.#2 The boy next to me, a handsome blond from south Jersey, turned out to have a fine high voice.

He sang several songs alone. There being a liberal leavening of New York Irish among us, he was soon singing Irish ballads.#3 The American weakness is that the success of someone becomes their sage.

The redhead was the most poised of all of us, but he was also the most stripped of his personality during training.#4 I was quartered with a group of other recruits on the second floor of a wooden barracks.

We had no privileges, and we were half-baked. We were like St. Augustine's definition of time: out of the future that is not yet, into the present that is just becoming, back to the past that no longer is.