George Washington is perhaps the most familiar figure in American history. But most people really only know the image of him they see in marble statues and patriotic paintings. Behind those symbols was a real man: ambitious, self-taught, intensely concerned with honor, and constantly wrestling with the immense responsibilities history placed on his shoulders.

In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, we’re taking an extended look at the life of the man more responsible than anyone else for the nation’s founding. Here to unpack that life for us is H.W. Brands, a historian and the author of a new biography of Washington, American Patriarch. Brands traces Washington’s journey from a young Virginia surveyor to military commander, founding father, and first president. Along the way, we discuss how Washington’s upbringing shaped his character, why he became a surprisingly effective military leader despite losing more battles than he won, how he held together a fragile revolutionary army, how he shaped the presidency through the precedents he set, and whether a leader like Washington could still succeed today.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• H.W.’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast:
  • Episode #696: Theodore Roosevelt, The Last Romantic
  • Episode #908: Would You Have Been a Patriot or a Loyalist?
• AoM Podcast #223: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Valiant Ambition
• AoM Podcast #366: Teach Yourself Like George Washington
• AoM Podcast #719: The Surprising Pessimism of America’s Founding Fathers
• AoM Article: George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

Connect With H.W. Brands

• H.W. on Substack
• H.W.’s faculty page

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Transcript Coming Soon

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

The hot dog occupies a unique place in American cuisine, playing a central role in our very conception of summer. Hot dogs are found at Little League games and backyard cookouts, county fairs and Fourth of July picnics. They’ve been sold from pushcarts on city streets, grilled in suburban cul-de-sacs, and eaten in the stands at ballparks for more than a century. 

Though often thought of as quintessentially American, the hot dog’s roots stretch back to the sausages brought to the United States by German immigrants in the 19th century. Early frankfurters were typically made from pork or a blend of pork and beef, while all-beef versions became popular through Jewish delicatessens and hot dog stands, particularly in New York. Over time, regional styles emerged, brands rose and fell, and the humble hot dog became a cultural icon. Americans now consume billions of them every year, yet most of us give surprisingly little thought to which hot dogs actually taste the best.

That seemed like a problem worth solving.

Methodology

The number of hot dog options available at the grocery store was almost overwhelming. Even among brands, there were often 5+ varieties to choose from. “Original” vs. all beef, regular length vs. bun length, no extra flavors vs. chili cheese. Surprisingly to me, many of today’s options — especially the budget dogs — actually list chicken and/or turkey as the main ingredients. (Spoiler: none of these were at the top of the rankings.) 

I grabbed an assortment and ended up taste testing eight different nationally available hot dogs over the course of a couple different cookouts with friends. (My family may need a year to recover before we eat hot dogs again.) 

If you’re in the Upper Midwest, Schweigert makes a great dog.

We also tested a few locally made hot dogs to see how they would stack up; two of them weren’t that good, but one would indeed have cracked the top three. That is to say: it’s very possible, but not a guarantee, that your local/regional hot dog brand is your best option. Do some testing of your own to be sure. 

Our groups blind-tested each dog — I knew where each was on the grill, then cut them into quarters for tasting. The scoring rubric was not scientific, but we generally looked for overall taste (saltiness, savoriness, meatiness, etc.) and texture (Did it have some snap? Was it mushy?). Our first tastes of each were without buns or condiments, except a bit of ketchup. 

With testing so many dogs, I wasn’t sure if the differences would be very noticeable. Would I remember the first one after testing ten more? Turns out, outside of a couple bland and unmemorable options, most were distinct enough to be able to tell the difference and form a fairly clear opinion on. 

Without further ado, below are the results. You’ll first find quick reviews of the five dogs that didn’t make it to the winners’ circle, followed by our top three picks.

The Rest of the Field

Hebrew National 

Hebrew National is best known for being a kosher hot dog (though its actual kosher merits, as of late, are debated within Jewish circles). As such, their frankfurters only contain beef and have no fillers or artificial flavors. They also use a unique spice blend that gives the hot dogs a distinct, almost peppery flavor. The flavor stood out from the crowd in our taste testing, but in a way that put it more in the middle of the pack rather than at the top. And the kids didn’t care for them much. They were fine overall, but I doubt I’ll be buying them again. 

Sugardale 

None of the adults in the taste test were impressed with the cheapest hot dog in the mix. Sugardale’s 8-pack of dogs is just $1.99, and it showed. The taste was bland and the texture was no different. Interestingly, though, all the kids enjoyed the Sugardales; the blandness might be a plus for the younger set. 

Sugardale’s offering also had the distinction of being the worst-looking cooked product. It was the only hot dog that plumped too much and split, only to then shrivel and even separate from the casing a bit. Not appetizing. That said, if you’re buying just for kids, it may not be a bad option. 

Nathan’s Famous 

As the company that puts on the world’s foremost hot dog eating contest, you’d think they’d have some of the best dogs around. Plus they were one of the first to tout an all-beef wiener. The taste was indeed good — in the top half, for sure. But they were some of the smallest and skinniest links — better for eating in huge quantities, I guess. It would take 2–3 dogs to fill anyone up, which isn’t ideal. 

Oscar Mayer Classic 

Despite being one of the most recognizable brands in the world of processed meats, my expectations for Oscar Mayer’s classic dogs were rather low. And accurate, as it turns out. The texture was too squishy — you want the hot dog to have some snap and bite to it — and the flavor was basically non-existent. It didn’t taste like anything. Overall, it was just a bland, squishy tube of meat paste. Nobody wants that. If you’re buying Oscar Mayer hot dogs, definitely go with the all-beef variety (see below). 

Bar S 

Like Oscar Mayer, Bar S is another bestselling budget hot dog. The flavor was meh, the texture was mediocre, and this hot dog was totally unmemorable from start to finish. As I write this a week or two after testing, I have no sense of what this hot dog tasted like. With the other dogs on this list, I can pretty well remember the overall experience, but Bar S is just a blank screen. I can’t in good faith recommend this hot dog, especially with so many other better options on the table. 

The Top Three Dogs

Though there were some general differences in opinion between 6 adult testers and 8 kid testers (ages 5–11), the three hot dogs below were universally well-regarded. The adults definitely preferred the all-beef options, while the kids were a little less picky overall. 

Oscar Mayer Jumbo Beef

After the original Oscar Mayer was a disappointment, nobody in our taste test focus groups expected much out of OM’s all-beef version. To our pleasant surprise, it tasted like a completely different product — in the best way. The flavor was very good and the texture was just right, with a little bit of snap and no mushiness. An all-around great hot dog for all ages!  

Kirkland 

If you’re familiar with them, Costco’s hot dogs have a very distinct flavor. And they’re delicious. Even in a blind taste test, I could pick this one out pretty easily. The Kirkland all-beef dogs that you buy in the refrigerated section are the same ones that you get in the food court for $1.50. (If it tastes different at home, it’s because of the cooking method.) It was also one of the larger hot dogs we tested, which can make a big difference, especially when feeding adults. You can’t go wrong with Kirkland. 

Ball Park Angus 

Every adult in our taste test had some kind of long-held expectation of what a hot dog should taste like. Whether it came from childhood or college cookouts on the quad, it was there. Turns out, that Platonic ideal of a hot dog is a Ball Park. Created in the ‘50s for the Detroit Tigers, this plump, juicy, all-beef hot dog is the bestselling frankfurter in America — and for good reason. Before our taste test, it had been a long time since I had tried a Ball Park, but it will be my go-to from now on. It tastes exactly how a hot dog should taste, which is perhaps the highest compliment I can give. 

__________

If the above reviews make it seem like I’m now a hot dog snob, rest assured that I’m indeed not. If there’s a cookout with hot dogs, I can pretty much guarantee I’ll eat one, even if it’s one of the bottom brands on this list. It’s not like anyone is digging through the trash to look at what brand is available or commenting on the particulars of a frankfurter’s flavor profile. Ultimately, hot dogs are more about the setting than anything else. 

Plus, there are plenty of folks who argue that a hot dog is but a meaty vessel for condiments and toppings galore. If you need some ideas, check out our guide to 8 of the most popular regional hot dog styles.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

America’s Founding Fathers have become larger-than-life figures. Their faces stare out from currency, their words are quoted in political speeches, and their accomplishments have been polished into legend. It’s easy to think of them as marble statues instead of flesh-and-blood men.

But the more closely you examine their lives, the more interesting they become. They wrestled with self-doubt, rivalries, failures, and moral shortcomings. They changed their minds, made costly mistakes, and faced problems for which there were no obvious answers. Yet they also possessed an uncommon sense of duty, ambition, curiosity, and conviction that enabled them to accomplish something extraordinary: creating and sustaining a new republic against long odds.

Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of speaking with some of the country’s leading historians and biographers about the Founding generation and the Revolutionary era. Below are the six best of these conversations to enjoy as America turns 250. They explore everything from the Founders’ philosophy of virtue to why they chose to become revolutionaries to the lessons their lives still offer today. Whether you’re just beginning to explore this period of history or are already a devoted student of the founding, these Art of Manliness podcast episodes will deepen your understanding of the remarkable men who shaped the American experiment.

Books, Routines, and Habits — The Founders’ Guide to Self-Improvement

The Founding Fathers believed that happiness wasn’t about feeling good but about becoming good. Jeffrey Rosen explains how they came to equate happiness with virtue and self-mastery, and why they believed personal self-government — a.k.a. self-improvement — was the foundation of political self-government. He explores the books that shaped the Founders’ thinking, along with the routines, self-examination practices, and habits they used to cultivate character. It’s a fascinating look at the moral philosophy that guided some of America’s most influential statesmen.

The Surprising Pessimism of America’s Founding Fathers

We often imagine the Founding Fathers as unwaveringly confident in the republic they created. But Dennis C. Rasmussen argues that many of them grew deeply anxious about whether the American experiment would survive. He explores why George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson feared the nation’s future (while James Madison remained hopeful). Their concerns ranged from growing partisanship to a decline in civic virtue among the American people. The conversation offers a surprisingly timely perspective on the challenges of preserving a free republic.

Would You Have Been a Patriot or a Loyalist?

Looking back, the American Revolution can seem inevitable. But for many colonists — including several of the Founding Fathers — the decision to side with the Patriots or remain loyal to Britain was anything but clear-cut. H. W. Brands explores the personal ambitions, relationships, and principles that shaped these choices. He explains why George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were unlikely revolutionaries, why Franklin’s son remained a Loyalist, and what led Benedict Arnold to switch sides. The episode offers a nuanced look at the complicated human decisions behind America’s founding.

The Fascinating Life of America’s Forgotten Founding Father

Benjamin Rush signed the Declaration of Independence, helped shape American medicine, and counted nearly every major Founder among his closest friends — yet today he’s largely forgotten. Stephen Fried explains why Rush’s remarkable legacy faded and traces his extraordinary life, from his role in the Revolution to his efforts to reconcile Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Along the way, he reveals how Rush’s journals and correspondence preserved an intimate portrait of the nation’s founders that remained hidden for generations. It’s a fascinating introduction to one of the most influential and overlooked figures of the American founding.

American Honor — Creating the Nation’s Ideals During the Revolution

We often think the American Revolution was driven primarily by taxes (“No taxation without representation!”) and political philosophy. But Craig Bruce Smith argues that honor was the deeper force motivating the Founding generation. He explains how changing ideas about personal and collective honor shaped the push for independence, influenced the choices of the Founding Fathers, and even played a role in Benedict Arnold‘s treason. The conversation also explores how America’s understanding of honor continued to evolve after the Revolution. It’s a fresh perspective on the ideals that helped forge a nation.

George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Valiant Ambition

Today, George Washington is remembered as the hero of the American Revolution, while Benedict Arnold is synonymous with treason. But early in the war, their reputations were almost the opposite. Nathaniel Philbrick explains how Washington grew into an exceptional military and political leader while Arnold’s extraordinary talent was undone by pride, resentment, and ambition. Their intertwined stories reveal that character — not just ability — ultimately determines a person’s legacy. It’s one of the most compelling studies of leadership to emerge from the Revolutionary era.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

It’s summertime, which means a lot of you will be loading up the car and hitting the highway for vacation.

I love road tripping. I prefer it over flying because flying is for the birds. When you’re on a road trip, you’re in control. You’re not getting herded through a terminal like cattle, packed into a metal tube, and told you can’t use the bathroom because the seatbelt sign is on. You can be leisurely. You can watch the scenery change from plains to mountains to desert. You can pull over to see some Cadillacs stuck in the ground.

But a great road trip doesn’t just happen. Over years of driving my own family across the wide expanses of the United States, I’ve figured out a few things that separate a smooth haul from a miserable one. I also solicited some tips from a friend who’s done likewise.

To make your long drives this summer more enjoyable, here are 30 rules of the road to follow:

1. Do a pre-drive check the week before. Check the tire pressure, oil, coolant, and washer fluid and make sure they’re all good. You want to avoid those breakdowns and tire blowouts where you’re left stranded on the shoulder of I-40 between Amarillo and Tucumcari.

2. Start with a clean cabin. Declutter your vehicle, vacuum its interior, and wipe the dash. Sure, after 500 miles, the inside of your car will look like a tornado touched down inside a Love’s Country Store, but there’s something about starting a trip in a clean environment that makes it feel a bit more pleasant.

3. Pack a real paper map. Even in the cell-tower-dotted landscape of the modern age, you’ll still encounter dead zones along your drive. GPS is great right up until you’re crossing one in the desolate West. A Rand McNally Road Atlas never drops to one bar. Also, looking at it is a great way for your kids to pass the time instead of staring at a screen.

4. Stock an emergency kit. We’ve got a whole article on what every man should keep in his car, and a road trip is exactly the scenario that list was written for. Stock jumper cables, a flashlight, basic hand tools, flares, and a solid first-aid kit at the least.

5. Download what you need for entertainment and navigation, and charge devices completely the night before. From podcast episodes to playlists to directions, download everything you want to have access to, even when your phone hits SOS, before you depart. Make sure the kids have downloaded episodes of Bluey or Gilmore Girls, and that everyone’s devices are fully charged the night before.

6. Prep for quality conversation. A road trip is a great time to get in some quality conversation (QC). But QC doesn’t just happen. You have to prep for it. For the adults and older kids, send them an article or podcast to listen to before the trip so you can spend some time discussing it while on the road.

7. Bring more wet wipes than you think you need. The gas pump handle is filthy, hands will end up coated in Cheeto dust, and the public restroom soap dispenser will be empty exactly when you need it. There’s no such thing as too many wipes.

8. Take it nice and easy. One of the advantages of driving over flying is that there’s no pressure to leave at an exact time. There’s no worry about missing a flight. So take it easy. Sure, have a general time you’d like to leave and arrive by, but there’s no need to get stressed trying to stick to a strict agenda and lapse into little irrational bouts of Dad anger.

9. Drive while the little ones sleep. If you’ve got infants or toddlers, the dawn patrol and the late-night push are your best friends. A mile covered while a toddler is unconscious in his car seat is worth roughly three covered while he’s awake and restless.

10. Everyone gets a turn being the DJ. Either rotate through passengers’ respective playlists of choice, or take turns picking each song.

11. Gas up at a quarter tank. Around town you can ride the needle down to E and play chicken with the fuel light. When you’re out in the middle of nowhere and the next gas station might be 50 miles away, play it safe, and make a quarter tank of gas the minimum you’ll get to.

12. Stick to the mega travel centers for pit stops. When the family needs to use the bathroom and restock on snacks, look for the towering signs of a national chain like Love’s, Pilot, Flying J, or — if you’re blessed enough to be in their territory — a Buc-ee’s. You are guaranteed a high baseline of restroom cleanliness, an elite, wall-to-wall snack selection, and brightly lit spaces. Leave the sketchy, dimly-lit, one-pump stations as pit stops of last resort.

13. Clean the windshield at every fill-up. A smudge of bug guts might not bother you in town, but staring through a kaleidoscope of dead gnats while driving into the setting sun is a recipe for annoyance and impaired vision. Grab the squeegee while the pump is running; it takes 60 seconds and drastically improves visibility.

14. Everyone pees when you stop. Whenever you take pit stops, everyone must go to the bathroom. No exceptions. No “I’m good.” Because the kid who was “good” will announce 30 minutes later that he was, in fact, right on the cusp of being not good and now needs to go.

15. Everyone moves when you stop, too. Your bladder isn’t the only thing that needs attention when you pull off — so do your hips. Eight hours folded into a driver’s seat will turn your lower back into a rusted hinge. Walk a lap around the gas station, do a few toe-touches or squats by the pump — get the blood flowing again.

16. Run a dedicated trash bag. One designated bag for trash keeps the footwells from turning into a landfill by the afternoon. Empty it at every single gas stop. Replace with a new bag.

17. Pad the timeline. If the GPS says eight hours, plan for ten and a half. Kids move slow, bathroom stops run long, and the surest way to ruin the drive is to chain yourself to an arrival time you were never going to make.

18. Treat screens as a tool, not a crutch. While it’s tempting to just let your kids zombify in front of their screens the entire trip, resist the urge. All kids need to experience the boredom of a road trip and the pleasures that can come with watching the landscape move past them. Put them on a rotation, like two hours off screens for every one hour on.

19. Have an arsenal of games ready. Road trip bingo, 20 Questions, Shotgun, the alphabet game, magnetic checkers. Cycle through them throughout the trip.

20. Kids must play Mad Libs. At least once. It’s a kid road trip rite of passage.

21. The left lane is for passing. Treat this as an unbreakable law of the universe, obey it religiously, and teach it to your kids by example. If you’re not passing somebody, get over. The republic of the road depends on it.

22. Use cruise control. Ensures you keep a steady pace the entire trip and keeps you from drifting up to 90 without noticing, which is how you end up explaining yourself to a state trooper while your kids watch terrified from the backseat, thinking their dad is going to jail.

23. Take the dumb detour. See a brown sign for a state park, a roadside museum, or a giant fiberglass something-or-other, and you’ve got the time? Take the exit. The World’s Largest Ball of Twine may become a core memory.

24. The hotel pool is non-negotiable. If you’ve got to stop at a hotel for the night, picking one with a pool is essential — at least if you have kids. After being strapped into a seatbelt for eight hours, your kids will have the pent-up kinetic energy of a coiled spring. Throwing them into a heavily chlorinated rectangle for 45 minutes before bed is the absolute best way to ensure they actually sleep through the night.

25. Curate the snacks. Beef jerky, almonds, pretzels — elite road fuel. Anything powdered, crumbly, melty, or sticky will end in regret. Powdered donuts in particular are an interior-ruining liability, and you will be vacuuming that white dust out of the seat seams six months from now.

26. Embargo “Are we there yet?” Ban the question outright. We get there when we get there.

27. No farting. Have some decency. Passengers are locked in a confined space and can’t escape.

28. Find an audiobook for the whole cabin. Eight hours of screens will turn their brains to mush. A good audiobook the whole family can sink into — or even some vintage spooky radio shows — unites everybody and vaporizes a couple hundred miles.

29. Embrace the silence. You do not need a podcast, audiobook, or Spotify playlist pumping through the speakers for all 1,000 miles. Let the cabin fall quiet for an hour. It gives the driver a break from sensory input and often leads to the best, most organic conversations of the trip.

30. Remember the drive is the trip. If all you care about is getting there, you should’ve bought plane tickets. The arguments, the inside jokes, the gas-station weirdos, the Killers singalongs, that’s the vacation, too, and often the stuff you remember most.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Every man needs a multitool or three stashed around the house or garage, or as a permanent part of his EDC. But how do you choose one in a multitool landscape that has hundreds of options, including for niche users like backcountry campers and first responders?

If you’re like many consumers, you start to do some research. But discussions and reviews of multitools can quickly become overwhelming and overly detailed. Most guys I know, myself included, are less interested in the sheer number of tools or the technical specs and more interested in one main thing: usefulness. How practical is this tool and how will it make my life easier? 

On your behalf, reader, I recently sought to cut through the noise to offer some clear advice on what multitools are worth picking up. I did a bunch of research, made some choices, and tested six of the most popular multitools on the market today. The options (and most recommended tools) remain dominated by three primary players: Leatherman, Gerber, and Victorinox (Swiss Army) — all of which you’ll see tested below. 

For size comparison. Starting on top and moving clockwise: Amazon Basics, Gerber Truss, Gerber Dime, Leatherman Skeletool, Victorinox, and Leatherman Free P2. 

It should be noted at the outset that these tools, with one glaring exception, did a pretty good job with the basics and would be perfectly serviceable for personal use or given as a present (a multitool is a classic gift). Most of my quibbles are fairly minor: I didn’t like the action of folding a tool out or putting it back into place, opening the pliers was a bit more awkward than it had to be, or it just didn’t feel right in the hand. When you’re spending good money on a tool, though, you want it to do exactly what it’s meant to do — and in a comfortable, easy-to-use manner, to boot. 

I’m not crowning a single winner here. Instead, here is a honest look at six popular options — and how to choose the right one for your specific needs.

Amazon Basics Multitool ($19)  

For the simple fact that this tool is sold under the Amazon Basics banner and is dirt cheap, it’s going to show up high on search results and sell a ton of units. Which is a real bummer, because this multitool blows. 

Verdict

From the start, this tool just did not feel very solid. Its two main pieces move laterally, giving it a cheap and clunky vibe. The implements do not open or close very easily, and accessing the pliers is a less-than-smooth experience. This review is short and sweet: do not buy the Amazon Basics multitool for yourself or your loved ones. 

Victorinox Swiss Tool X ($155) 

The maker of the original Swiss Army knife has been around for nearly 150 years. They’re best known for their red, pocket-sized tools that are centered around the knife and screwdriver bits, as opposed to today’s tools that are generally built around a hefty set of pliers. While I didn’t test one of the red classics, I did buy one of their modern options that is more like the standard modern multitool.

Verdict

The Victorinox was the longest tool I reviewed and among the top two heaviest. Bulky can be okay, if the benefits outweigh that downside, but that’s not quite the case here. A big part of the problem with this one is that it features a very polished mirror finish, making it slick to hold and use. When it comes to any tool, a good solid grip is critically important, and this multitool is lacking that in a big way.

And while opening and closing the integrated implements is generally smooth, the inner functions are not the easiest to access and required some fingernail fiddling that wasn’t very fun. Those downsides, along with the hefty price tag, mean that the Swiss Tool X is not one of my top choices. 

Leatherman Free P2 ($130)  

No multitool review would be complete without testing an American-made Leatherman or two. Since the 1980s, Leatherman has been the go-to brand for multitools — and for good reason. They’re generally reliable, durable, and can be passed down from grandfather to father to son. The only real problem is that there are so many Leathermans available. There are a few dozen options to choose from, which is rather paralyzing as a consumer trying to figure out what to buy — from the $250 ARC to $40 pocket-sized options and everything in between. 

Ultimately, I went with Leatherman’s “Free” system, which was appealing to try out because it touts one-handed opening and locking of tools, for those times where you just don’t have a second hand available. 

Verdict

The reality, for me at least, was that I could never quite figure out how the one-handed operation was supposed to work. It felt forced and awkward, even if technically doable. (Plus, I actually found one-handed use to be easier with the Gerber Truss and the Leatherman Skeletool.) 

The lever for closing tools was not very intuitive or easy to operate.

Opening and closing the pliers was slick — probably the best and smoothest of the bunch — but the inner tools were fairly hard to access without first opening the outer tools. The notches on the end are supposed to make it easier, but I didn’t find that to be the case in practice. 

I also didn’t like the mechanism for unlocking the tools for closing them. The lever was the hardest to use of all the tools I tested. Overall, it’s a fine multitool, it just doesn’t have the smoothest or easiest operation of the bunch.  

Leatherman Skeletool CX ($100) 

Leatherman’s pared down Skeletool has become very popular in recent years. Whereas many multitools have suffered from feature bloat (do I really need multiple blades? or a can opener?), the Skeletool offers users the few tools they use most: pliers, one quality blade, a couple of screwdriver bits, and a bottle opener. The stripped down tool therefore weighs less and carries a slimmer profile than its dozen-tool (or more) cousins. 

Verdict 

Somewhat surprisingly, the Skeletool has been the full-size multitool that I’ve reached for the most. I wasn’t sure if it actually had the features I would need, but turns out it’s popular for a reason — about 80% of what I need a multitool for is covered with a blade, pliers, and a screwdriver. Plus, I found one-handed operation of the knife to be the easiest of anything I tested. 

Given its weight and profile, I’ve come to think of the Skeletool almost as more of a pocketknife with a couple extra features. It carries a lot easier than the heavier tools listed here, and the clip lets you easily snap it onto a pocket, backpack, keychain, or tent. 

Gerber Truss ($55) 

For most of the 2000s, Gerber has been right behind Leatherman as a leading maker of multitools (as well as other heavier-duty outdoor blades, like survival knives and hatchets). Rather than being sleek and shiny, their style is decidedly rugged and tactical. Like Leatherman, Gerber offers plenty of options, but its smaller lineup makes choosing one a little easier. I went with the Truss, which is their middle-of-the-road, standard multitool. 

Verdict 

Overall, I really like this tool. It just feels sturdy in your hand. The implements are thick and solid, so you know they won’t bust if you put pressure or leverage on them. Opening every tool, including the inner ones, is a breeze — probably the easiest of what I tested. The pliers are spring-loaded once they’re fully in position, which is handy. And the mechanism for closing each locked tool is a simple, easy-to-operate pull-back slide. 

An easy sliding mechanism to close locked-in-place tools.

My only gripe is that it feels a bit bulky in your hand when using the fold-out tools. I wish the profile was a little sleeker, and I’m not entirely sure why one end is wider (which is indeed noticeable while in use). This isn’t a multitool that fits nicely in a pocket. That said, this is a great tool overall — at a great price — for your garage, toolbox, tacklebox, camping kit, etc. 

Gerber Dime ($35) 

A true mini-multitool option can come in surprisingly handy. But finding one that doesn’t feel flimsy or disposable is not easy. Enter the Gerber Dime. It’s just two inches long and is literally a quarter of the overall size of the Victorinox. Cool. 

Verdict 

I’m a bit shocked by how solid this tool feels for how small it is. With a pliers, scissors, knife blade, “retail package” blade (literally just for boxes and hard-to-open packaging), a couple screwdriver bits, and even tweezers, it really has everything you’d need in a multitool — just in a smaller size.

Smaller than my car key and incredibly rugged. Impressive!

Overall, this thing is cute as a button (sorry, I meant rugged as hell), easily fits on any key ring, and has been a lifesaver on multiple occasions in my couple months of testing. It shouldn’t be your only multitool, but I might say it’s the single option on this list that’s a must-have. Of all the multitools I’ve tested, the Dime is what I’ve actually used the most because it’s been easier to have on my person at all times. And that counts for a heck of a lot when it comes to judging the practicality and convenience of a multitool. 

Conclusion  

To be honest, I’m not the handiest guy. I don’t get super excited about tools in general and my DIY chops are pretty average. Given that context, it’s my opinion that there’s a place in your home and pocket for a few of these multitools. A keychain tool is underratedly clutch, and at just $35, you can’t go wrong with the Gerber Dime. A knife that can fit in your pocket and has a couple extra features, like the Skeletool, is nice to have along on day trips, picnics, and other less intense outings — or as something that lives in your junk drawer for easy tasks around the house. And a more intense multitool, like the Gerber Truss, is absolutely valuable in your toolbox for small jobs or to have along on tool-heavy outings like fishing or camping. 

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Note: The following is an excerpt from The Technique of Getting Things Done (1947) by Donald Laird. 

The right reading — often accidental — wakes up slumberers and gives needed goals to those who still have none. The right book or article has started many on the main road and off the detours. 

Enrich Weiss wanted to act in a circus, so this nine-year-old practiced in a shed behind his home in Appleton, Wisconsin until he could hang by his knees from a trapeze and pick needles from the floor with his eyelids. At twelve he ran away from home. 

In a secondhand book store, when he was sixteen, he picked up a book on magic by Robert Houdin that was to change his life. He paid a dime for the book, started to read it after supper. He could not leave it. He thought about magic tricks while cutting neckties, while running in amateur races. He got more secondhand books on magic, worked up a few tricks of his own, and changed his name to Houdini. 

He was a lifelong habitué of secondhand book stores, gathered more than 5,000 volumes on magic and spiritualism which are now in the Library of Congress.

In Abilene, Kansas, a tallish high-school boy from across the tracks wondered what to do when he graduated. He was tired of working in the creamery. He visited the weekly-newspaper office; famed editor J. W. Howe loaned him a book that had just come in. The book told the story of that amazing military leader, Hannibal. Young Dwight Eisenhower was fascinated. It was the turning point in his life. Reading the right book started “Ike” Eisenhower on the way to West Point Military Academy to become Allied Supreme Commander in history’s greatest war. 

Robert E. Peary, a dreamy boy from Cresson, Pennsylvania, was inspired by Elisha Kane’s book Arctic Explorations (a dreary tome, if you ask me). Robert’s dreamy eyes narrowed; he could already see visions of the frozen Northlands. “I will help the world understand the mysteries of those places,” he decided. 

That book gave him a goal. At thirty he made his first voyage of exploration to Greenland. At forty-seven he tried to reach the North Pole and failed. But he still had his goal, born of boyhood reading. 

Heroically, he tried again and six years later did reach the Pole, the first person to capture this goal which men had been trying to reach for four hundred years. Scientific societies and governments the world over honored the boy who had gotten his start from reading, reading that gave him a wrought-iron determination.

Keep a supply of worthwhile books around where children can see them. Select books that cover a variety of subjects. Expose young people to the stimulation of reading. There is no telling where it may lead.

John Masefield ran away to sea at fourteen, was assistant bartender in New York for a while. At eighteen he read Chaucer’s The Parliament of Fowls. That decided him; he would be a poet. And in fifteen years his poetry had won everlasting fame. He became Poet Laureate. 

A librarian, your boss, a book dealer, a teacher can help you pick the reading that will count.

Often we just stumble across the right reading; that’s why it is wise to read many things. I accidentally stumbled into psychology. I was halfway through college, majoring in chemistry, and an assistant in the physics laboratory. Then one Christmas vacation I started to read a four-volume manual on experimental psychology by E. B. Titchener. At the end of the vacation I knew I was changing my vocation. My chemistry professor was disgusted. But the halfhearted chemistry student became an enthusiastic psychology student. 

Great Lives Remind Us 

Do you have a hero? “Tell me whom you admire,” said Sainte-Beuve, “and I will tell you what you are.” 

The lives of great men have aroused sleeping abilities in thousands of people who were once stumbling along. Reading such lives has given many an irresistible determination to get more things done.

Rudyard Kipling went to Bombay at seventeen wearing real whiskers. In the heat and sickness he toiled on a newspaper, apparently his lifework. Alone in the house one hot evening he picked up a book by Walter Besant, All in a Garden Fair. The book told the story of a young man who wanted to write and who did in spite of great obstacles. 

That selfsame evening Kipling resolved that he, too, would write, whatever the obstacles. He started at last to save money. At twenty-four he returned to England with his savings, settled in a room over a sausage shop, and began the writing that was to make his name world-famous.

F. B. Morse was one of eleven children. He was ten when he read Plutarch’s famous Lives of Illustrious Men [another title for Parallel Lives], those stories of ancient Greek leaders and noble Romans. The book fired the young man; he, too, was going to accomplish something. Within a quarter-century he won recognition as a portrait painter, and a short time later invented the telegraph. 

Plutarch’s Lives started him on the road to the American Hall of Fame. 

Plutarch’s work has given many young men the stimulus to get things done. Napoleon carried a copy of it for twenty years. Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the War of 1812, read and re-read Plutarch, starting in his youth. So did Robert Brookings, who established the famous Brookings Institute in Washington. 

Benjamin Franklin attributed his zeal for getting things done to reading Essays to Do Good, by Cotton Mather. He was about sixteen, working in his brother’s print shop, when he seriously began to read to improve himself. He says in his autobiography: 

I then proposed to my brother that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books. 

But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and, dispatching presently my light repast, had the rest of the time till their return for study.

Loyola was thirty and a common Spanish soldier when he was laid low with a leg wound. While convalescing he read The Lives of the Saints, which inspired him to become a religious worker. He founded the Jesuit order, was consecrated a saint by Pope Gregory XV. 

“Study a great man,” said Louis Pasteur. 

Great men who have done things, who are still doing things, can become our inspiring lifetime friends through their biographies and autobiographies. Get a hero — and get better acquainted with him by reading about him. 

Some rich man who wanted to make the world hum could put more books about people who have done things within reach of the minds of the generation which is yet to do things. 

Everyone can find new friends who count by reading books about people who count. Try reading a biography a month for several months.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Summertime is here, and we couldn’t be happier. As author Benjamin Alire Sáenz put it, summertime is a “book of hope,” filled with the promise of freedom, adventure, and dreamy idleness. It’s a time for sloughing off the heaviness of winter and soaking in the hot, rejuvenating sun.

It’s also a time for diving into certain pastimes and rituals. Seasonal traditions provide a natural rhythm and change to life that’s often missing in our modern world of fluorescent-lit, temperature-controlled sameness.

Below we offer 18 suggestions on things to do to make the most out of the season of summer and inject more of its mirth and charm back into your life. Do them all by Labor Day and you’ll have created enough hazy memories to keep you warm the next winter through.

Enjoy!

Here’s how to keep score with pen and paper.

Learn how to wear one with style.

Check out our video tutorials on summer grilling!

Need an idea on what to read? Check out our book lists!

Learn how to make your own rope swing with our illustrated guide!

Here’s why they’re still worth sending.

With our archives now 4,000+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in June 2014.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Burgers are my favorite food. What’s not to like about them? They’re tasty, filling, and — if you load them up with toppings like tomato, lettuce, and onion — offer a fairly nutritious mix of protein, carbs, and veggies.

​What I also like about the humble hamburger is exploring its many regional variations. New Mexico’s green chili burger? Fantastico. Minnesota’s Juicy Lucy? Amazing. Utah’s pastrami burger? Brother, I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a pastrami hamburger today.

​But my absolute favorite regional burger hails from my own home state: the Oklahoma fried onion burger.

​Boy, I love this burger. Its beauty is its simplicity. It’s basically a smash burger with onions in it. Just two thin patties, with fried, caramelized onion, cheese, and a bun. Hot diggity burger, it’s tasty.

The History of the Oklahoma Fried Onion Burger

​There’s some debate about how the fried onion burger was born, but the general story is that it originated back in the 1920s, in a small town west of OKC on Route 66 called El Reno.

A father and son duo named Homer and Ross Davis had a place there called the Hamburger Inn. As beef was expensive, the Davises kept the price of their burgers down by reducing the meat portion of the patty and smashing thin-sliced onions into it. The result was a cheaper burger that still gave diners a meal that felt like it had some substance.

When the Great Depression hit, this cost-saving measure became even more appreciated, and what was dubbed the “Depression burger” really took off.

The name may have been a little unappetizing, but the concoction was decidedly tasty.

​While the original purpose of smashing onions into the burger was to stretch the meat out, the unintended consequence was that it added layers of deliciousness. When you smash those onions into a screaming-hot flattop grill, the edges caramelize and crisp, and the patty drinks up all that sweetness from the onion.

​The Oklahoma fried onion burger was a hit with patrons, and soon other places in El Reno started making them. Many of these establishments are still in business. Robert’s Grill has been flipping onion burgers in El Reno since 1926, Johnnie’s joined in the ’40s, and Sid’s Diner opened in 1989 and was featured on that spiky-haired culinary madman Guy Fieri’s show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

Last summer, our family made a road trip to eat an onion burger at Sid’s (and see the town where Twisters was filmed). The burger was okay. Solid. I enjoyed it. I always enjoy a burger. But I wouldn’t make the 2-hour drive to El Reno from Tulsa to eat it again.

You can find other onion burger joints around Oklahoma. Tucker’s is one of them. This OKC-based chain has a location in Tulsa, and puts out a legitimately tasty onion burger. They’ve got this big ol’ boy of a burger called the “Mother Tucker,” which has three patties. It weighs over a pound, and it’s an experience, my friend.

Recently, though, instead of outsourcing my fried onion burger consumption to dining establishments, I decided to try making them at home.

Friday night had long been Burger Night in the McKay household, and I’d make your standard backyard grilled burgers on my pellet smoker. Always enjoyable.

​But a couple of months ago, I had the hankering for an onion burger, but didn’t want to eat out. So I slapped a griddle we had into the smoker and got it scorching hot. While the griddle heated up, I sliced some sweet onions really thin and created some balls of 80/20 ground beef. Once the griddle was hot, I got to work. As quick as you can say “Jack Robinson,” I had fried onion burgers plated for my family.

​Reader, the family’s review of them was unanimous: amazing. Better than our usual burgers. Better than famous Sid’s in El Reno. Still not as good as Tucker’s — game respects game — but a worthy at-home substitute.

​The Oklahoma fried onion burger has become the McKay household’s go-to burger.

​Today, I’m going to explain how you, too, can make them this Friday. Even if you’ve never visited the Panhandle State, you’ll probably never go back to another way of making homemade burgers again.

How to Make an Oklahoma Fried Onion Burger

What You Need

​A griddle or cast-iron skillet. To make these onion burgers, you need a flat-top surface that can get really, really hot in order to give those burgers a nice crispy brown crust and those onions that delicious caramelization. If you’ve got a Blackstone griddle like many American suburban men do these days, you’re locked and loaded to easily make grilled onion burgers. If you don’t have one, you can buy a cast-iron griddle for your grill. If you don’t have a grill, you can cook them up in a cast-iron skillet on your stove — but realize that it’s going to get really smoky in your house; these burgers are best cooked outside.

​Heavy-duty spatula. You’re going to be smashing your burgers flat, and to do so, you need a heavy-duty spatula — something thick, wide, and made with stainless steel. A nice metal spatula will also help you flip the burgers while retaining the delicious brown crust that will form underneath.

​Mandoline slicer. You’ll use this to slice your onions super thin. You need your onions as thin as possible so they cook quickly.

Ingredients

• 80/20 or 85/15 ground beef. 80/20 has the ideal meat/fat ratio for hamburgers. But grocery stores sometimes only have 85/15. We’ve done that before, and it still works.
• Two large sweet onions. You want sweet onions for your grilled onion burger. And get two large onions. We’re going to be generous with our onion portions.
• Oil
• Salt
• Sliced cheese. American cheese is classic — extra salty and melty.
• Buns. You can never go wrong with a plain ol’ white bun. But if you want to kick your onion burger up a notch, opt for a potato bun.

Directions

Get Your Griddle Hot

You want your griddle scorching hot so you can get that nice crust on your meat, and so that the onions cook quickly. Shoot for a temp between 375 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slice Onions — Thin!

Use your mandoline to slice your onions as thin as you can.

Make 3-Ounce Burger Balls

Each hamburger has two 3-ounce patties. Each assembled burger takes two patties, so if you’re serving 4 people, you’ll need eight 3-ounce balls.

Get All Your Supplies Locked and Loaded

Make sure you have all your supplies ready and at hand before you begin cooking; things will move quickly once the process begins.

Hit the Griddle With Some Oil

Place Burger Balls on the Griddle and Salt

Throw a Fistful of Onions on the Burger Balls​

Err on the side of more. You want lots of onions because the onions are going to shrivel and render while they cook.

Smash Down the Meat and Onion With Your Spatula

Press very firmly, until the burger is about as thin as it’ll go.

Let Burgers Cook for 90 Seconds to 2 Minutes

You’re going to get a nice browning of the meat that’s griddle side, while the onions render down into the meat from above. Once you see liquid form on top of the patties and the onions look like they’re starting caramelize, they’re ready to flip. Usually happens in about 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

Flip Burgers

Place a Slice of Cheese on Each of the Burgers Immediately After Flipping​

These are the makings of 4 burgers, which will take two patties each. Put cheese on all the patties.

Place Buns on Top of Cheese

Stack the buns on top of your burger, putting the bottoms on one patty and the tops on the other. Let the buns sit there while the other side of the burger cooks. This will steam the buns and make them nice and soft, as well as give them a savory flavor. Let the other side of the meat cook for about another minute or so.

Sandwich the Meat, Onions, and Cheese Between the Buns

Gather as many of the fried onions as you can and place them on the patties. Stack the top bun+patty+onions+cheese layer on top of the bottom bun+patty+onions+cheese layer, sandwiching all that gooey goodness between your two bun halves.

If you’re making burgers for a larger crowd, put the already cooked and assembled burgers in an oven set to warm, and get the next batch of burgers going on the griddle.​

​

You can eat these fried onion burgers as is, but if you’d like to garnish them in the Okie style, keep it simple. Mustard and pickles only.

Enjoy! Once you try these, all other burgers will pale in comparison.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Memorial Day is coming up. For most folks that means a day off, grilling in the backyard, and getting 30% off at their favorite online retailer.

Nothing wrong with that. I’m looking forward to eating a burger this weekend myself.

But Memorial Day was established for a graver and loftier purpose — one that’s worth putting yourself in touch with each time it comes around.

Memorial Day started in 1868 as Decoration Day. After the Civil War (which killed more Americans than any war before or since), people in towns across the country walked to local cemeteries in late May to lay flowers on the graves of the men who didn’t come home.

That’s what the day is supposed to be about. Remembering the men who answered the call and didn’t make it back, honoring those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms and the life we enjoy today.

If you desire to put the memorial back in Memorial Day, here are four ways to do so:

Read a War Memoir

One way to turn your thoughts to the sacrifices made by those who fought for our country is to immerse yourself in their world by reading a war memoir. They’ll give you the perspective of the man on the frontlines. You get the story of those who survived — and, inevitably, of the comrades who didn’t.

You could just start a war memoir over the long weekend, but if you really want to challenge yourself, try to finish it within those three days. If you read one that’s around 300 pages long, that means reading around 2.5 hours a day.

Here are a few to consider picking up this weekend:

• With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge. Visceral, honest, and morally serious, Sledge captures not just the brutality of WWII’s Pacific campaign, but what prolonged combat does to the human soul. For some inside details on the book, listen to our podcast with Eugene’s son.
• Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie. More literary and philosophical than Sledge, but equally memorable. Leckie has a novelist’s eye for character and atmosphere while still conveying the exhaustion, terror, and absurdity of the Pacific War.
• Company Commander by Charles B. MacDonald. A compelling account from WWII’s European theater. MacDonald was a 21-year-old infantry officer during the Battle of the Bulge and offers his experience with humility, clarity, and emotional honesty.
• Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. One of the best American Vietnam memoirs ever written. Mason was a Huey helicopter pilot, and the book captures both the adrenaline and the psychological attrition of the war with an unsentimental, deeply human, immersive immediacy that makes you feel like you’re there.

Do the Murph

Working out is one of the only ways modern citizens experience even a tiny bit of the pains and exertions experienced by soldiers in combat. One way to pay tribute to them, then, is ramping up the strenuosity and performing a workout with a specifically in memoriam purpose.

Enter the Murph Challenge. Named after Lt. Michael Murphy, a Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan during Operation Red Wings (the mission Lone Survivor is based on), the workout is based on his favorite personal training session while deployed and at home. The workout consists of:

• 1-mile run
• 100 pull-ups
• 200 push-ups
• 300 air squats
• 1-mile run

The exercises are all done while wearing a 20-pound vest or body armor.

The workout is intentionally difficult, as suffering is part of the point. The grind becomes a small symbolic act of remembrance: voluntarily embracing discomfort, exhaustion, and discipline in recognition of those who endured far more.

Watch Band of Brothers or The Pacific

Back when we had cable, I’d usually end up landing on Band of Brothers or The Pacific during my Memorial Day weekend channel surfing. AMC and The History Channel ran marathons of these WWII miniseries all weekend long.

Despite having seen them multiple times, I’d sit there and watch for hours every time I landed on one. When the marathon ended, I always felt the same three things: sad, grateful, and inspired to be a better man.

We don’t have cable anymore, so I haven’t stumbled into one of these marathons in several years. But I’ve missed them. This Memorial Day weekend, I’ve decided to queue one of them up to watch.

What I love about both miniseries is that they follow real units of regular guys through the worst combat of World War II. The cameras don’t dwell on the generals. They stay with the guys on the front lines who, before being thrown into the brutalities of war, worked at the hardware store or attended a state college.

You can’t watch these shows and not think about what was paid for the freedoms you take for granted while you’re eating a burger and drinking a beer.

Volunteer to Put Flags on Soldiers’ Gravestones

The original Decoration Day was about walking to local cemeteries and laying flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers. The tradition continues today, mostly in the form of small American flags placed in front of veterans’ headstones in the lead-up to Memorial Day.

Local American Legion and VFW posts, along with Boy Scout troops and community groups, organize flag-placing details at veterans’ cemeteries every year. They’re almost always looking for volunteers.

To find a detail near you, call your local American Legion or VFW post, or contact the nearest national or state veterans cemetery.

And don’t forget to put out your flag at home.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

With the Old Breed is widely considered one of the greatest war memoirs ever written. Penned by Eugene Sledge, a Marine who fought with the 1st Division — the old breed — in the Pacific campaigns of Peleliu and Okinawa, the book is unflinching, deeply human, and so vividly written that you can practically feel the heat, mud, exhaustion, and terror coming off the page.

But Sledge wasn’t a professional writer. He was a biology professor who started jotting notes on scraps of paper tucked inside the New Testament he carried in his breast pocket. He wrote the book decades later, partly to process his own trauma, partly to leave a record for his sons.

One of those sons is my guest today. Henry Sledge has spent years carrying his father’s legacy forward, and he’s written his own book — The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed — that pairs his father’s combat experience with previously unpublished material and his own perspective as Eugene’s son. Today on the show, Henry and I talk about why his dad wrote With the Old Breed, what made fighting in the Pacific uniquely hellish, and how Eugene managed to come home and live a full, honorable life despite carrying the war with him for the rest of his days.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• China Marine: An Infantryman’s Life After World War II by E.B. Sledge
• HBO series The Pacific
• Ken Burns’ The War
• AoM Article: Eugene B. Sledge Puts Your Problems Into Perspective
• AoM Article: Are You Missing the Forbidden City?

Connect With Henry Sledge

• Henry on IG
• Henry on FB

Thanks to this Episode’s Sponsor!

• Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code MANLINESS at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/MANLINESS

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page

Download this episode

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice

Transcript 

Brett McKay:

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the AoM podcast. With the Old Breed is widely considered one of the greatest war memoirs ever written. Penned by Eugene Sludge, a Marine who fought with the first division, the old breed, in the Pacific campaigns of Peleliu in Okinawa. The book is unflinching, deeply human, and so vividly written that you can practically feel the heat, mud, exhaustion, and terror coming off the page.

But Sledge wasn’t a professional writer. He was a biology professor who started jotting notes on scraps of paper tucked inside the New Testament he carried in his breast pocket. He wrote the book decades later, partly to process his own trauma, partly to leave a record for his sons. One of those sons is my guest today. Henry Sledge has spent years carrying his father’s legacy forward, and he’s written his own book, The Old Breed, The Complete Story Revealed that pairs his father’s combat experience with previously unpublished material and his own perspective as Eugene’s son. Today on the show, Henry and I talked about why his dad wrote With the Old Breed, what made fighting the Pacific uniquely hellish and how Eugene managed to come home and live a full honorable life despite carrying the war with him for the rest of his days. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/OldBreed. All right, Henry Sledge, welcome to the show.

Henry Sledge:

Thank you. Great to be here, Brett. I appreciate that.

Brett McKay:

So your father was Eugene “Sledgehammer” Sledge, who was a marine infantryman who fought in the Pacific campaign of World War II. He’s also the author of what many consider one of the greatest war memoirs ever written, and it’s called With the Old Breed. I’m sure a lot of our listeners have read this. Why did your dad write the book originally? Was this something he had planned right after the war? 

Henry Sledge:

There really was no orchestrated plan to write a book. I think it began as a cathartic process on his part to deal with some of the PTSD, the emotional trauma, just the trying to assimilate to civilian life as he began to put the war behind him. I think that was part of it. And the other component to it was I think there was a desire on his part to have a written record of his experience for my brother and me. I remember him telling me that.

Brett McKay:

And the thing too is he had extensive notes to write this thing. Where did those notes come from? How did he keep them when he was fighting?

Henry Sledge:

Well, so the Marines were not allowed to keep diaries for obvious security reasons. If you saw The Pacific miniseries…?

Brett McKay:

I did.

Henry Sledge:

Yeah. So Rami Malik playing Snafu has that classic line, gives the Japs valuable intel, they find it, but that really was the crux of it. I mean, Marines were not supposed to keep diaries for security reasons, and he began to keep surreptitious notes on little pieces of paper that he kept tucked into his pocket New Testament Bible that he carried in the breast pocket of his jacket. And he also wrote some cursory notes in the first few pages of that Bible just on weather conditions and basic outline of where they were and that kind of thing. But most of the note taking was going to be on pieces of paper that he kept tucked into the Bible. And then when he got home, he took those pieces of paper and wrote down on a piece of legal paper, an outline, fleshing everything out, and then from there began to write on his legal pads with his pencil

Brett McKay:

When he started to write. How long after did it take for him to finish it?

Henry Sledge:

He started writing, I would say early seventies. I mean, my earliest memories of it are just when I was just a few years old and that process, and probably a few years after he began that he asked my mother to begin typing the manuscript. So she started typing it. He would write at night and then she would type in the days that followed. I mean, that went on through most of the mid to late seventies. It probably wasn’t until the late seventies that she talked him into like, “Hey, this is a pretty powerful story. We should look at trying to get this published.” And I think that process, and I remember it really well. I mean, I remember the day that we got the letter from Presidio saying that they would publish it, and that was around 1980 because it actually came out in 1981.

Brett McKay:

So yeah, it was about a 10-year process.

Henry Sledge:

And the thing is, Brett, I mean, he would work on it furiously for several days at a time at night, and then he’d take a break and may not touch it for a month or two months. And I mean, as my brother and I got older and as a family, we’re doing things because at that time, he’s in his early fifties or mid to late forties and just life gets in the way of everything. So I mean, he’s being a husband, being a dad, he was very involved in our lives on a day-to-day basis. We had a close relationship. And so we would hit stretches where he wouldn’t even work on it for months at a time and then pick it back up and dive back into it.

Brett McKay:

Your dad’s writing is really good, it’s really compelling. But he wasn’t a professional writer. He was a biology professor, and his writing wasn’t flowery. It was more matter of fact. How would you describe your dad’s writing style?

Henry Sledge:

Yeah, I would agree. I mean, his writing, I would term it like this. He was a scientist. He had PhD biology, biochemistry. He wrote like a scientist, no flowery, elegant prose, nothing pedantic. I mean, it was straight ahead, unblinking factual.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, you can tell that he’s got this scientific biological mind when he writes, because the way he describes things, it’s almost like you’re reading a field report from a field biologist. I mean, there was one, here’s a quote he’s talking about. He’s just seen the dead bodies on Peleliu. Yeah, he said this, “it was gruesome to see the stages of decay proceed from just killed to bloated, to maggot infested rotting to partially exposed bones like some biological clock marking the inexorable passage of time.” And then he’d also, when he described dead bodies, he would compare them. Well, it looks like the intestines of a squirrel that I would hunt as a boy.

Henry Sledge:

Yes, that’s exactly right. And I literally turned as you were reading that, I mean, I know that book so intimately. Well, I got pretty much right here to the part where you were reading from. But not only that, he talks about cans of C rations and K ration boxes open and unopened, lay around our gun pit along with discarded grenade and mortar shell canisters scattered about the area or discarded us helmets, packs, ponchos, jackets, web cartridge belts, leggings, boondockers ammo, boxes of every type and crates the discarded articles of clothing and the inevitable bottle of blood plasma bore mute testimony that a marine had been hit there. And what I was saying about that was that writing is just knowing my father. . . . he’s not just seeing this and observing these things. He feels the anguish of seeing the blood of fellow Marines.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, that’s one thing I noticed throughout the book is he doesn’t flinch away from the brutality of war. And he describes it in great detail, but at the same time, he brings his humanity to it and he talks about the moral and spiritual damage that it’s doing to the men who are in these battles.

Henry Sledge:

Yeah, always. There was always that angle of it to him because I mean, look, that was one of the extraordinary things about the kind of guy that my father was. I mean, honestly, he was a very peaceable guy who wanted to enjoy his life and go to college and do the things that a young man would be doing. And fighting on some more torn island in the middle of the Pacific was not what he wanted to be doing, but he wanted to enlist in the Marine Corps. He wanted to be a part of that. He knew that everybody was going to have to go fight somewhere, and he wanted to be with what he thought was the finest outfit out there, which was the Marines and all of those things. Just that bear testimony to his character,

Brett McKay:

And as you said, the process of writing this book, it seemed like it helped him process that trauma that a lot of soldiers came home with.

Henry Sledge:

I do think it was a cathartic process for him. I really do. I remember when With the Old Breed came out and we got our first copies, and I remember reading it, of course, I had read some of the typewritten pages that my mother had typed in the years leading up to its publication, but I remember really well, I remember reading where in the introduction, I think it was in the introduction or some of the early parts of it, he said, the nightmares no longer wake me in the middle of the night with a pounding heart and in a cold sweat. But I’ll tell you this, I recall very well when my brother and I were young, my mother sat us down and she said, listen, if you boys need us in the middle of the night, come to my side of the bed. Don’t go to your father’s side of the bed and whatever you do, don’t touch him.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, because he was still dealing with it.

Henry Sledge:

Yeah. I mean, he was still dealing with it. I mean, look, man, that’s heavy stuff. I mean, this is a guy we’re talking in the mid 1970s here. This is a guy who’s in his fifties at this point with a couple of boys and being a husband and a dad and trying to put all this behind him.

Brett McKay:

And his war experience had happened in his early twenties.

Henry Sledge:

Yeah, well, I mean, he was 20 years old in Peleliu. He turned 21 on Peleliu. And he was 22 in Okinawa.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. There was another antidote you put in your book about your experience with your dad’s dealing with that trauma, that PTSD of the war. I think you were a kid and you got a toy Tommy gun.

Henry Sledge:

Oh yeah, the plastic Tommy gun. I know right where you were going. Growing up in the seventies, my brother and I would go down to the dime store and we’d get the little plastic army helmets, and I was fascinated by the Thompson sub machine gun. I just loved that weapon as a kid when I would see it on movies and things like that. And I remember buying one just the cheap little plastic Tommy gun, and it had the little clacker in it. When you pull the trigger, it would clack like that, man. I would run around with that thing out in the woods and pretend I’d watch Hogan’s Heroes in the afternoon and then run around with that thing after that. Pretend like we were playing World War II or something. I mean, I was just a kid, and I think I was like eight or nine, maybe 10 years old, and I got the not so bright idea to hide in our cupboard in the kitchen. 

We had a pantry cupboard. It was really tall. It was about five feet tall and eight, nine years old, I was a really small kid, and I got the idea to get in that thing and hide and close the door and jump out and scare him when he walked in the kitchen. And so I did one night and I heard him coming down the hall kind of whistling to himself. He always did. And he walked through the kitchen and as he did, I pushed open the door and jumped out at that thing and was squeezing a little trigger on it. And he spun around and I don’t know that he ever said a word. He did not lose his temper. He did not lose his cool. But he spun around and looked at me like he’d never looked at me before.

And he picked me up as the Marines used to say, grab me by the stack and swivel, which is where you grab somebody by the collar. And he grabbed me and my dad was not a big man, 5’ 9”, 155 pounds or so. But he grabbed me and he picked me up and pushed me against that cupboard door. And then he let me down and he took me into the bedroom and took his belt off and gave me a whipping. And people would be horrified at that now. But I mean, that was not an uncommon thing for those of us growing up back in those days. But the interesting thing about it was like he did not lose control. He did not lose his cool. That was a very calculated response to what I had done, and he was trying to instill in me, don’t ever do that to a combat veteran.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. And what’s interesting though, besides being startled at night and being freaked out by his 8-year-old son who jumps out with a toy Tommy gun, you describe your dad. You never got the impression, you say this, that you were living with someone who was mentally ill or just disturbed. He was like you said, a very controlled, calm guy.

Henry Sledge:

Absolutely. I mean, he would stress out about things. You could see that. But look, this goes to the heart of, I mean, this is a great point you bring up, Brett, because a big part of why I do what I do is people who’ve read With the Old Breed, people who’ve seen The Pacific, people who maybe saw the Ken Burns The War in 2007. You watch those things and you see this young man come home from this crucible of savagery, which was his experience on Peleliu and Okinawa, and you see this guy come home and you see him have the nightmares, and you get a sense of him struggling to assimilate back into civilian life. One thing I felt like they did not, the war was excellent by Ken Burns, but my mother and I talked about it afterward. And one thing that they didn’t do there, and they didn’t do it in the Pacific either, because there just wasn’t time.

They really didn’t convey the point adequately that okay, yeah, he struggled when he came home, but he struggled successfully. And so I feel like I can bear testimony to the fact that he was a classic All-American father. He would never forget the Marines he served with. He would never forget his time in the Marine Corps. He would never forget his pride in the Marine Corps or his pride in our country for that matter. But at the same time, he deplored the idea of sending young men into combat, but he waged whatever struggles he had internally, he waged them successfully because I mean, look, he and my mother had, they were married almost 50 years by the time he passed away, and they had a fantastic marriage. Not to say that it was perfect, no marriage is, but they had a very strong, we had a great family life.

It wasn’t perfect, nothing is, but I never felt like, well, I’ll say it like this. My father did a great job of compartmentalizing the angst, and he was determined to be a productive, cheerful member of society. And he was, I’ve got to know many of his students in later years, some of whom were young Marines and soldiers coming home from Vietnam. And I mean, his students called him Uncle Eugene. I mean, so he was a very light, he had a fantastic sense of humor, a very lively sense of humor. And he was very highly thought of professionally, very highly thought of in Montevallo in our town growing up where I grew up. And so yeah, Sledgehammer may have had his struggles, but he did it right.

Brett McKay:

Well, let’s talk more about your dad and his history and how he ended up as a Marine. So your dad’s family had a military tradition. His father served in World War I when the war broke out. Your father was at a military school? Military institute. Was it Marion Military Institute?

Henry Sledge:

Yes, Marion Military Institute.

Brett McKay:

And so, I mean, he was on track. He could have been an officer. His family was nudging him to be an officer, but your dad decided not to do that. Can you tell us the story of why he chose to intentionally flunk out of the officer candidate program and enlist as a private in the Marines?

Henry Sledge:

Yeah, I mean, I can answer the question very easily. The impetuousness of youth, he and a very large portion of the detachment in his officer training and the V12 program that he was enrolled in at Georgia Tech after the war broke out. They were scared that the war was going to be over before they got into it. And he didn’t want to live with that feeling of, I almost got there, but I just didn’t quite get there and do what I was meant to do. And you know what bears pointing out? I mean, this is a really powerful thing. I think it’s a very significant thing about when you talk about Eugene Sledge and the kind of guy that he was. I mean, look, my grandfather was a very influential man in mobile back in the 1930s. He was very well thought of, and he had a certain amount of influence.

And other marines that my dad served with pointed this out to me. I mean, a lot of these guys came from hard scrabble backgrounds. They came from, I mean, I’m just going to say dirt poor backgrounds, lacking a lot of formal education. I mean, that was a fact with a lot of those guys back then. And that wasn’t the case with my father. I mean, he actually had some college behind him, and he came from a family that you could say in certain ways was well to do and to absolutely purposefully insert himself into the world. He inserted himself in the Marine Corps. I think it’s a powerful thing. And I mean, one of his fellow marines told me, I went to visit this guy years ago, and he said, that was one thing I always admired about your dad. We all knew he probably could have escaped the path that he chose, but there he was shoulder to shoulder with us and he was a damn good Marine. He did everything he was ever asked or told to do.

Brett McKay:

So you’d say it was just useful impetuosity, just sort of that thumos that drive to see action.

Henry Sledge:

Yeah, absolutely. And as he said, I mean, if we only knew what I mean, he talks about in the troop train, clacking along the rails to headed to San Diego because he actually went through basic in San Diego, not at Paris Island, which was not the usual thing for a young man east of the Mississippi. But he did go to San Diego and he talks about how all these guys are on the troop train headed west, and they’re all singing songs and jousting with each other and cutting up. And he said, we were like boys headed off to a summer camp. And he said, God, if we had only known what lay ahead, I’m reminded of All Quiet on the Western Front because that young man, this young German kid and his school buddies, I mean, they can’t wait to enlist and get into the fight. And then you see well into the book, what a horrible thing it is. And they understand that then.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, your dad in the beginning of the book, spends a good deal of time talking about his bootcamp training as an infantryman. What was that like?

Henry Sledge:

Well, the training, he felt like the instructors were all very thorough and professional and did a good job and tried to do the best they could to prepare these guys for what lay ahead now to speak on a more personal level. The training was rigorous. It was hard. Nothing about it was easy. Their drill instructor was Corporal Dougherty, and Corporal Dougherty was not a big man. My father described him as probably five 10, not an ounce of fat on him, absolute rock, hard physique, and phenomenal shape, just these mean green eyes, the way he would look at you, very intimidating guy, even though he wasn’t that big. But the man obviously was a professional at what he did, and that was taking these guys and stealing them into guys who were going to take positions and rifle companies across the Pacific. And I think that my father had a really mature attitude about the training they were going through because he understood.

Well, he really reflected on, and it was some great material that got edited out with the old breed that I was so thankful to be able to use in my book, because he talked about when they got back on Pavuvu after Peleliu, he reflected, he had some brilliant writing about the very thing you asked about and talking about how the Marine Corps training was tough. It was brutal, but it had to be because what they were going to experience was brutal. And he had just come off that at Peleliu, and he understood that he probably could not have survived that experience had it not been for their training.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, I thought that was interesting, those unpublished parts of the manuscript that you put in your book where he talked about that a lot. He was grateful for the training. A lot of the Marines, they carped about it, but he realized no part of the reason why I’m still alive when luck is a big part of it. But the training was also a big part.

Henry Sledge:

And I mean, he writes that very articulately and no small wonder that the Marine Corps views his book with such high regard.

Brett McKay:

Let’s talk about your dad’s combat experience in the Pacific. His first assignment we’ve been talking about this was to help secure the island of Peleliu. I imagine a lot of people listening right now have probably never heard of this island. They might’ve heard about Iwo Jima or Midway. Why is Peleliu often overlooked by Americans?

Henry Sledge:

Well, Peleliu was a tiny, tiny little aol, two miles by six miles on the western edge of the Pacific. And the short answer to your question, why is it overlooked? Is because it could have been bypassed. And at the time, MacArthur was proceeding along a southwesterly axis to get back to the Philippines, and then Chester Nimitz and the US Navy and Marines were driving through the Central Pacific. So we had this two tiered approach in subjugating Japanese forces. It was determined originally that Peleliu was needed to neutralize the airfield there so that Japanese air assets, Japanese air power could not threaten MacArthur’s, right? Flank is he proceeded towards the Philippines. As it turned out, they didn’t need to do that because all Japanese air power had been knocked out by US Navy carrier Task force raids in early 1944, and Peleliu wasn’t invaded until September, 1944.

Now, Admiral Halsey had a foretelling of this because as his task force pilots are coming back, as those Hellcat pilots are coming back from their strikes throughout the Palau Islands, his pilots are telling him, look, we’re not encountering any aerial opposition. It’s all been done away with, and we’re destroying a lot of airplanes on the ground. And so he sat down and thought about it. He met with other officers, and he went to Nimitz and said, I fear another Toro. I don’t think that we need to hit Lou. My guys are not seeing any aerial resistance, and I think this is going to be a lot worse than we think it could be. Chester Nimitz, for reasons he never really disclosed because he passed away in 1965, chose to not stop the invasion armada and to proceed with invading Peleliu. But the short answer to your question, why is it overlooked us?

Because it could have been bypassed. And that was such a tragedy because going into it, general Puris, who was the first marine division commander, had this inexplicably optimistic view of the coming battle that, look, it’s going to be rough but fast. It’s going to be like Tarawa three days, maybe four. It might only take two. Every time I think about that, it just makes my blood run cold because you realize what they got into with the challenging topography, not to mention the heat and humidity. I mean, that was going to be part of every battle in the Pacific. But the absolute meat grinder that it turned into that they did not originally think it would be. I mean, a lot of the news correspondents didn’t even go ashore at Peal Lu because they thought, well, there’s no point. I mean, it’s going to be over in a day and a half or two days or three. And so you only had a handful of correspondents who actually won ashore. So it was an amalgamation of several things as to why Pew wasn’t so well known. That caused a lot of bitterness for my father and a lot of the guys who were there and lost good buddies there. I remember in the 1970s, pew was frequently referred to as the forgotten battle. I will say this, I don’t think Peleliu is quite so forgotten anymore.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. So I think thanks to movies like Saving Private Ryan Band of Brothers, I think a lot of people are familiar with what fighting was like in Europe. All wars, brutal. We’ve had Alex Kershaw on the podcast, the World War II historian. Yeah, absolutely. He talked about, he says, the battles in Europe or the war in Europe, it was brutal, but there was a certain romanticism about it because soldiers are fighting amongst these old cathedrals in rural European farms with stone fences fighting the Pacific was not like that at all. And your father did an excellent job capturing the hellishness of war fighting in the Pacific. What was Peleliu like? Give us a look into what it was like fighting there.

Henry Sledge:

Well, Peleliu, the northern part of the island was called the . . . known colloquially to the Marines who had to fight there as bloody nose ridge. And in fact, it was a series of ridges. The coral high ground was obfuscated by vegetation before it had all been blasted off by our pre landing naval and aerial bombardment, but it was very topographically challenging terrain. You had a complex system of ridges and ravines and box canyons and blind canyons, and all of that was pockmarked with caves. I mean, I’ve seen the number of 500 caves that pockmarked like Swiss cheese. The Japanese were absolute masters of using every aspect of their terrain to their advantage as a force multiplier, if you will. And Peleliu offered some tragic opportunities for that. But the parts of the island that weren’t just complete coral were jungle scrub growth, but it was terribly hot seven degrees off the equator on D-Day. It was 115 degrees in the shade. And so you had that aspect of it. 

Brett McKay:

I want to talk about the coral, cause I think a lot of people think, oh, Pacific Islands, it’s going to be like Tahiti with these edenic beaches, but these beaches were just mostly coral. What made fighting on coral so brutal?

Henry Sledge:

Well, the northern landing beach, and I’ve walked that entire landing beach at Peal Loop where my father went as shore on Orange Beach too, which was a southern sector of the approximately 2200 yard long beach. It actually was pretty flat and sandy, it had a gentle slope to it, but once you got inland, you were in the scrub growth. But then they quickly got into the coral now up on what they call White Beach, which was where the first marine regimen, my father was in the Fifth Marine regimen, but the first marine regiment landed on White Beach, which was a little bit north of where my father landed. I walked to that area, and I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, Brett. It was sharp coral outcroppings all the way out into the water. There is no sandy beach on White Beach. And so for the first Marines, the first marine regiment, when I say first Marines, I’m referring to them as soon as they debarked from their landing craft, as soon as they got out of their amphibious tractors, they’re immediately getting cut by this coral if they have to die for cover, which they did because the Japanese had heavily impregnated that or heavily fortified that part of the landing beach.

But I remember my dad telling me they had entrenching tools, but he said it almost felt like there was no point in it because really on Peleliu, you really couldn’t dig in unquote dig in and dig a nice deep hole in soft earth like you could on Okinawa in 1945 plu. He said, there were so many times on PLU we couldn’t dig in. I mean, we might could take shelter in a shell crater, but half the time you just pile logs and rocks around you for any kind of protection, any sort of protection from flying fragments. But digging in was just almost an impossibility because of that hard coral.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. And then your dad talks about the coral, it made fighting hard and it made digging foxholes hard, but it also made field sanitation pretty much impossible.

Henry Sledge:

Correct, because he talked about when a man had to defecate, usually he just did it in like an ammo can or a C ration can. There was nowhere to bury it, so they just threw it off into some underbrush or something like that. And imagine after 15, 20, 30 days of that, not to mention the dead and rotting enemy bodies, and of course the marines tried to pull their guys out and get ’em back to a secure area as quickly as they could, but still, you had this unbelievable proliferation of human waste. I mean, it’s disgusting to talk about, but look, these were things that my dad wrote about and talked about so much because to him, you have to understand this, and this is a lot of what drove him to write with the old breeded. He wanted people to understand. You’ve seen war movies and you think combat is something glorious and something romantic. And he said there’s nothing romantic or glorious about it. It’s dealing with blowflies that have become engorged on human blood. It’s dealing with rotting corpses. It’s the smell of unburied human waste. I mean, that’s what a battlefield was to him.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. I mean, the environment was just completely so. It was hot, humid, he talked about it just smelled all the time. That was a challenge dealing with that. You’re dealing with not only the blowflies, there’s maggots, and he describes the maggots and the festering bodies. The land crabs were another thing you had to deal with all the time.

Henry Sledge:

Absolutely. I mean, he talked about how at night you could just hear the land crabs crawling around in the undergrowth. Of course, it sounded like Japanese soldiers crawling around, which they did. They infiltrated their lines at night to great effect. They did it every night and they were really good at it. And of course, in addition to everything that you just said, you deal with the fact of lack of clean drinking water and the inability to get a good night’s sleep because the Japanese were infiltrating every night to purposefully keep the Marines awake and the soldiers, because the army was there too, of course, to purposefully keep these guys awake, to keep them from getting any sleep. And of course, that just compounds everything to an exponential degree.

Brett McKay:

Okay. I mean, the environment itself, that was an enemy. It was a brutal enemy, but we haven’t talked about the human enemy or not that much, that your father and the other Marines were sent to fight on Peleliu, and that was the Japanese. What were the Japanese like to fight?

Henry Sledge:

Well, the Japanese were fiercely brave, dedicated and horrifically effective and brutal soldiers. They were absolute masters at exploiting their terrain. As I’ve already said, at a place like Peleliu, they had untold opportunities to do that. My father always thought it was ironic, I would say funny, but he didn’t think it was funny. But I remember in the seventies, people had this perception that anything made in Japan was cheap. I remember him telling me that. He said, we didn’t think of their weapons as cheap. They felt pretty effective to us. Their 70 mountain, 70 millimeter fuel gun that they used was horrifically effective. Their mortars were horrifically effective, and the Japanese exercised superb fire discipline. They would purposefully wait for a marine to be wounded. They employed snipers to horrific effect. A sniper might fire around to wound a marine knowing full well that two other Marines are going to come out and try to drag him back in, and then they would open fire on those guys.

I remember my father saying, I can hear him say it. I’m going to say Japanese. That’s not the way he put it, but he said The Japanese opened up on stretcher teams absolutely without mercy, and that was something that he said it would just make you weep in fury to see a wounded marine and four of his buddies going out, or two of his buddies going out to try to bring him back in. And then those guys getting cut down, and he said It would make you absolutely weep to see that and make you hate your enemy. And so you had this fierce preternatural hatred between the Americans and the Japanese just as much on their part as our part. It was completely mutual, but they were certainly a skilled enemy and an enemy to be feared.

Brett McKay:

How did fighting the Japanese compare to fighting the Germans?

Henry Sledge:

I remember my father telling me in the seventies and eighties as I was growing up, and we would have our conversations about all this, the Germans were very professional, and he said, I would’ve hated to fight ’em. But most of the time they would bed down at night and get their sleep. He said the Japanese would not do that. They would attack all day and fight all night through infiltration. And then the other angle to this is there were many cases where the Germans surrendered when they realized that they had to the Japanese, I’m not going to say that they never surrendered because obviously by the time Okinawa rolled around, it did happen. But very rarely, it was very rare that the Japanese would surrender. And on Peleliu they had to fight to the last man pretty much Okinawa. They did begin to surrender, but even that was not a codified course of action that was going to be a more piecemeal ad hoc type situation where individual Japanese has realized that the jig is up. There’s no point in continuing this, and they would give themselves up. But even then, that was rare. And so you have this human conflict that is just the absolute depths of human savagery, and it just was an absolute war of bitter hatred. And my father spoke of it. He thought of it, he wrote of it because to him it was just such a component of what they were dealing with.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. I mean, let’s talk about that. I mean, what sorts of savagery did your father see and write about?

Henry Sledge:

Well, I mean, so he saw many cases where the Japanese had defiled marine corpses, and I won’t say how, I don’t want to put the listeners through the grotesque descriptions that you can read it in his book. There was a good bit of that. And so of course, Marines always tried to remove their dead because they knew the Japanese would just do terrible things to the bodies, and even worse to a man if they captured him, they knew that to be captured was absolutely not an option. On Guadal Canal, you had an incident called the Get Gee patrol, which is where a couple of Japanese were taken prisoner by the Marines in the early stages of the battle. And these guys said that some of their buddies were down the river and wanted to surrender, and that if the Marines would go out and send out a rescue party, they would surrender.

And so our intelligence officers always wanted to pick up surrender Japanese if that was an option, because it was a source of intel. It was a source of knowledge and factual data. And so the Marines sent out a patrol under the command of Colonel Frank gge to bring these guys in, and they ended up being ambushed and killed to the last minute. I can’t remember. I’m not a Gua Canal expert. I’ve read a lot about it, but I have buddies who that’s their area of specialty, but the get gee patrol was slaughtered. Well, I think one guy survived and he was able to swim back along the beach and get out of there and get back to the marine lines. But when he came back and began to get the word back to his guys of what happened, then we began to understand this is going to be a different kind war.

This is not a war where you can hold your hands up and surrender and say, that’s it. I’m done. Not to mention, we haven’t even talked about the Philippines. We haven’t even talked about what was going on to our army, to the soldiers in the Army divisions who’d surrendered in the Philippines being marched north via the Batan death march up to Camp O’Donnell and the starvation and the torture that they were encountering. And so these were things that we were not prepared to deal with, but we learned very quickly that they were going to be things that we had to face. And when my father was going through his initial training on Pavuvu, when he first got out to the Pacific Theater, he talks about how he was on a working party one day loading coconuts, and he and the buddies he’s working with, and the guys he was working with had been at Cape Gloucester.

They were combat veterans, and they had not just gotten out into the theater of war like he had, and they come across another Marine who was working in an area close to them, and they start talking. And this guy was the survivor of the Get Gee patrol. And the guy says goodbye to his buddies, and he walks off, and my dad’s like, who was that guy? And his buddies tell him, he’s a lucky son of a bitch. That’s what he is. He was on that Get Gee patrol. And they proceed to tell my father the story of it. And news travels fast, man. People talk. And I mean, these marines were speaking to each other and getting the word out that, look, you cannot surrender. That is not an option.

Brett McKay:

And what’s interesting, your father describes how when these marines were seeing the brutality with which the Japanese soldiers were treating the corpses of the Marines, there was this temptation from the Marines to do the same to retaliate and do the same thing. And your father even describes, he had moments where he was like, yeah, I want to maybe do something to this Japanese dead body. I’m just so angry at them. But he didn’t, he was able to kind of resist that pull. How do you think your father was able to do that and other marines?

Henry Sledge:

Yeah, so one of the things you’re referring to is a lot of Japanese soldiers in World War II had gold teeth, and it became a practice among a lot of Marines to, if they saw a Japanese corpse that had gold teeth, they would take those gold teeth. And it was commonly done. Of course, the Japanese were doing even worse things to the bodies of our guys when they could get to ’em. But yeah, that actually is a pretty powerful passage where he starts to do that one day. And Doc Caswell, who’s the corpsman and K company of my dad’s unit, puts his hand on my dad’s shoulder and says, sledgehammer, what are you doing? What are you getting ready to do? And my dad says, well, I just saw this J’s got gold teeth. I thought I might try to take one or two of ’em.

And Doc, because I always call the corpsman doc, he says, you don’t want to do that, don’t do that. And my father says, well, okay. I mean why? And Doc says, well, think of the germs. Think of the germs. What would your old man think about that? My dad said, well, my old man’s a doctor. He might think it’s kind of interesting, but Doc Cael says, you don’t want to do that. And so my father said, okay, well, how about I just cut off his collar insignia instead? And so he did that. But my dad was a very intelligent young man, and he reflected on it, and he said, I realized Doc Cael was not concerned about me being exposed to germs. He just didn’t want to see me lose that last vestige of civility.

Brett McKay:

Yeah, lose that last part of his humanity. I mean, for some Marines, it even got worse. Your father described, I mean, there’s one story. One guy took a hand from a dead.

Henry Sledge:

Yeah, that was at the end of Peleliu. And that guy was almost ostracized by the other Marines because their NC was like, get rid of that thing. I’m going to write you. I’ll put you on report if you don’t.

Brett McKay:

But it just goes to show this type of fighting they were doing, the environment they were in, I mean, it could cause significant spiritual and emotional damage to these guys.

Henry Sledge:

It causes this complete degradation and breakdown of decency. And that was something that my father wanted to make people understand is that the guys doing this, these are nice young, these are nice kids.

Brett McKay:

And they were kids. Some of them were literally kids. They were 17 years old,

Henry Sledge:

17, 18. These are nice kids, but they have been dehumanized. And if I can find it, Brett, man, they’re such a powerful passage. Basically, it’s a paragraph where he just really sums up the awfulness of an experience like Peleliu. In the last line in that paragraph, he says, Peleliu eroded the veneer of civilization and made savages of us all. And that is such a powerful line right there.

Brett McKay:

And your dad did such a great job describing that while on Peleliu, I mean, just complete brutality, harsh fighting conditions. But your dad and a lot of the other Marines lost a mentor, captain AK Haldane on Peleliu, and this really hit your dad hard, and it was sort of a turning point for him in his well experience. How did AK die and how did his loss of leadership change the way your father viewed the rest of the war?

Henry Sledge:

Well, yeah. Captain Halane, his codename, ak, they called him ak. He was such a well thought of officer. He was their company commander. He was K company’s commander. He was killed on October 7th, 1944 by a sniper on Hill one 40 on Pew. And my father said it was the worst grief I suffered during the entire war. AK Captain Halane represented stability and security in a world gone mad. I mean, that’s exactly the way he says it, because even though Captain Halane was like 27 years old, he had been at Guac Canal, he’d been at Cape Gloucester. He was incredibly well thought of and just a very cool headed, excellent company commander. And his men loved him and would’ve done anything for him. And the thought of him that he would be killed like that, my father wrote about how that never occurred to us that we could lose him. And it enraged them all that he was killed by a sniper, but that is how he died. And yeah, captain Halane was just so well thought of, and to lose him, it just was he represented, like I said, stability and security, and they never conceived that he would be killed.

Brett McKay:

Did it change what your dad thought his chances of survival were? It’s like, well, if this guy could go, I could go just as easily.

Henry Sledge:

Absolutely. And I mean, certainly by the time they get to Okinawa, he’s seen so many good Marines get hit or killed. And he said, the arithmetic of chance, I mean, you felt like every day you were running out of even more luck if you had any left at all.

Brett McKay:

So even though the brass thought Peleliu could be taken in a few days, the first Marine Division fought on the island for about a month, a little over a month. They suffered over 6,500 casualties, including 1000 deaths. And as you mentioned, Peleliu could have been bypassed. Correct. Which your father had some bitterness about. After Peleliu, he fought on Okinawa for 82 days, on and off the front lines, mostly on the front lines. And Okinawa had its own nightmares conditions, constant rain, mud, maggots, everything was moldering. He called it Hell’s own cesspool. Sledge, despite being in the thick of two of the worst battles in history, never received a high level valor award like the Silver Star. Why is that? And what was the culture in his battalion regarding medals? Well,

Henry Sledge:

I remember him telling me about a conversation that he had with Captain Stanley many years after, because he and Stumpy got to know each other well and had many conversations when he was riding with the old breed in the late seventies before it got published in 1981. And he asked Stuy that. He asked Captain Stanley that he’s like, why is it that you never recommended anybody for a valor award, bronze star, silver star? And he said that Stumpy told him, he said, because sledgehammer, I didn’t want to pick one guy out and recommend him for a bronze star or silver star, a medal of honor because I felt like every one of you guys deserve something.

Brett McKay:

And then your dad recast the story where he had a fellow Marine just tell him, Hey, you know what sledge you did? And that to him represented the highest honor that he could get.

Henry Sledge:

Yeah. So that was when it’s after Peleliu, they’ve gotten back to Pavuvu, which is where they were in the Russell Islands where the first Marine Division rested, refitted and trained and staged out for both Peleliu and later Okinawa. And he describes this scene where it’s late one afternoon, kind of twilight, and he and his bunkmates, he and his tent mates, I should say, are in their tent. One guy’s over in the corner and on his rack, snoozing away very softly, can hear him snoozing after the day’s training. And my dad’s lying there in the twilight, and he is starting to get sleepy, and he is resting his head on his arm on the pillow of his rack. And then he hears the other Marine say, you know something sledgehammer, my dad says what? And he says, I really had my eye on you coming into the unit before pew.

I had my doubts about you being a doctor’s kid and coming from a rich family and having been to college and all that. And he said, I got to tell you, man, I kept my eye on you on pew, and you did okay by God. You did okay. And my dad wrote about how his chest literally burst with pride, he said, and he said, many men were awarded silver stars and bronze stars deservedly, but he said those words from a veteran who had been at Cape Gloucester and Guadalcanal, those words meant more to me. That seal of approval from a fellow Marine meant more to him than any medal he could have ever been awarded.

Brett McKay:

When Eugene returned home in 1946, he like hundreds of thousands of American men, brought the abyss of war home with him. What was his transition to civilian life like?

Henry Sledge:

Well, it was a painful process. He writes about that in great detail in his second book, China Marine. I explore it quite a bit from, obviously I wasn’t born until 20 years later, 19 years later. But I know from having talked to my mother and hearing family stories, it was a slow process. He dealt with a lot of nightmares he dealt with. I remember asking him when I was a kid, I said, dad, when you came home from World War ii after surviving that, I would think you would’ve just felt like you could conquer anything. And he said, to be honest with you, I did a lot of sitting around staring at the wall, just trying to mentally put my head back together. My grandfather was, and I write about this in my forthcoming second book. I talk about my grandfather a little bit, and what an intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful man that he was.

And my father credited my grandfather with really being a bridge back to sanity because he said, pop. That was what everybody in the family called my grandfather. He said, pop was an incredibly well thought of one of the finest physicians in the state of Alabama and professionally very well thought of and accomplished. But he just understood because he had treated shellshock victims in World War I, and he understood what these young men had been through, and he was a shield for my dad because my grandmother didn’t understand it. And she would come in, they show this in the last episode of the Pacific. They show it really well when they show the kid play on my dad sitting under a tree and the lady playing, my grandmother comes out and says, oh, Eugene, you look like a gangster with those glasses on. And she hands ’em a glass of iced tea and then starts talking about, Eugene, you have to get a plan for the future.

You need to be doing something. And they film that scene exactly the way we told them. Those conversations went. And my father said in those instances to my grandmother, my plan is to do nothing for a while. And then my grandfather would come out and just like he did in the Pacific in that last episode, and he comes out and he says, Mary Frank, what are you doing? Leave the boy alone. You have no idea what men like him have been through. Go on, leave him alone. And that is exactly the way that happened. And I remember us talking to the producers about that and how my grandfather would do that and shoo her away, and she’d start grumbling and mumbling and muttering and walk away in a huff. And then my grandfather would just tell my father, you have nothing to prove to anybody in this world.

Brett McKay:

When someone reads your dad’s book, what lessons do you hope they walk away with? When they’re finished,

Henry Sledge:

They learn something about what it really means to send young men into combat. I mean, look, I’ve always said this, Brett. I mean, I’m passionate about World War II history, and so I enjoy reading about everything concerning every battle across the Pacific. And not only that, but in Europe as well. And I enjoy reading about the tanks, the weapons, the airplanes, all of those things, the hardware, the logistics, all of it, the strategic planning, all of those things interest me greatly. But to really understand what it’s all about, you have to go beneath the rim of the helmet, and you have to understand what goes through a young man’s head when he is under heavy fire and experiencing prolonged close combat and the emotional toll that that takes on a human being. And with my Father’s book, it helps you understand that. It helps you understand that beneath the rim of the helmet perspective, and I mean, my book explores that as well. I mean, because it has not only my perspective of seeing how as a father, and of course, I was born in 1965, so I’m growing up in the 1970s and eighties, how his marine experience, how his World War II experience informed the choices he made as a husband to my mom and then as a father to my brother and me.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. What do you think people listening to this show can learn from how your father carried himself after the war?

Henry Sledge:

Well, the last thing he says in With the Old Breed, the last thing he says, if the country is good enough to live in it’s worth fighting for, is the troops used to say with privilege goes responsibility. Certainly, he delved deeply into the whole matter of Peleliu was tragic, unrelenting, horror and suffering and waste, unnecessary waste. Okinawa was its own hell. He saw so many good friends maimed and killed. Everybody suffered in their own way. Even the ones who came home physically intact as he did suffered, they bore that cost for the rest of their lives. But he regarded having been a Marine and having served the way he did as a great honor, and he carried that with him, I think, for the rest of his life. I mean, I remember the leather belt that he wore every day, okay. With his ll being corduroys, if he was wearing blue jeans, he wore the same damn leather belt every day. It had an EGA on it, which of course is the Marine Eagle Globe and Anchor. It was a really small, it was one of his collar EGAs, and he had that through one of the holes in his belt.

Brett McKay:

One of the lessons I took away after reading your dad’s book is just gratitude for the comfort and privilege that I have. I mean, he talks about when he is in Okinawa, he had marched two straight weeks with sore slimy feet trapped in wet socks. Then when he finally had a chance to dry out, remove them, pieces of dead skin were peeling off with his socks. And he says it was the kind of experience that would make a man sincerely grateful for the rest of his life, for clean dry socks, a simple condition as dry socks seemed a luxury. And he talked about too, that he hopes people in America who read this book would be grateful for the things they have. And he talked about he struggled to comprehend people who griped because America wasn’t perfect or their coffee wasn’t hot enough. Or they had to stand in line and wait for a train or a bus. And I’m living here in the 2026 and I can get things delivered to my doorstep from Amazon the next day, and I get upset because, oh, I asked for next day delivery and it’s going to be two days. It’s just like, man, when I’m thinking of that, I got to think about Eugene’s Sledge and just how lucky I am and quit complaining about all the inconveniences. So it’s just gratitude. And I’m wondering if we can end this. If you can read a passage in the preface of the book where he talks about why he published With the Old Breed.

Henry Sledge:

“In writing. I’m fulfilling an obligation. I have long felt to my comrades in the first Marine Division, all of whom suffered so much for our country, none came out unscathed. Many gave their lives many of their health and sown their sanity. All who survived will long remember the horror. They would rather forget, but they suffered and they did their duty. So a sheltered homeland can enjoy the peace that was purchased at such a high cost. We owe those Marines a profound debt of gratitude.”

Brett McKay:

Yeah. When I finished this book, I felt that gratitude.

Henry Sledge:

Exactly. I mean, as he said to me, Brett, I, and I heard that when I was a kid, I complained, of course I did like every kid, and he would say, I’m just happy I got dry socks. But he also, when we would have deeper conversations about all this, and we did that many times, he said to me, he said, people who have not been under shell fire cannot imagine what that is like.

Brett McKay:

Yeah. Well, Henry, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your father, his book and your book and the work you’re doing around your dad’s legacy?

Henry Sledge:

Well, I speak a lot about my dad. I go to a lot of historical events. I don’t have a website. I’m on Facebook, William Henry Sledge. I’m on Instagram, I think I’m at HSledgehammer on Instagram. I don’t do a lot of posting on there. Both his book With the Old Breed and then my book, The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed in the subtitle of my book as a father, a son, and how World War II and the Pacific shaped their lives. Both of those books are on Amazon, and of course any bookstore is going to have his book and my book, his second book was called China Marine. It was about his time in China and then coming home, it dealt with that. And then I’m working on, my second book will release in November and it’s going to be called The Things That Remain: The Artifacts of Eugene B Sledge, and it will be a coffee table photo book of a lot of the artifacts of uniform items and things like that of my dad’s that I have.

And some of those things are in museums as well. His Bible that he kept notes in that form the basis of his book with Reed, that Bible, it’s currently at the World War II Museum in New Orleans, but it is going to be in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. They have asked for it, so it will be there. But I do everything I can to perpetuate my father’s legacy. I mean, I just feel a passion for, it’s not just that I feel a passionate interest in World War II history, but it’s, I know how people Marines especially, but really combat veterans of all stripes. I know what my dad’s writing has meant to them because I’ve met so many of them who’ve told me that. And that just drives me forward to do what I do. I mean, look, I’ve been to my dad’s gravestone in Mobile, Alabama.

Brett and my wife and I were just down there back in March and a local veterans unit did a 25th anniversary or commemoration of his passing. And his gravestone is forever covered with challenge coins and tokens of respect. And I mean, Marines have gone and left their medals there. I’ve seen little toy airplanes left by children there. I mean, the tokens of respect, it’s overwhelming really to stand there and look at that. And when I see that, I mean, here’s a guy who died in 2001 and people from all over the world traveled to pay their respects to his growth. I mean, I look at that and that just tells me there’s a guy who did it. 

Brett McKay:

Well, Henry Sledge, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Henry Sledge:

It’s been an honor to be here, Brett. Thank you.

Brett McKay:

My guest today was Henry Sledge. He’s the son of Eugene Sledge who wrote With the Old Breed. Henry’s got his own book out called The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed. It’s available on amazon.com. And make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is/OldBreed. Until next time, this is Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to the podcast, but to put what you’ve heard into action.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.