21 Facts About Eugene Sledge

Eugene Bondurant Sledge was a United States Marine, university professor, and author.

Eugene Bondurant Sledge was born on November 4,1923, in Mobile, Alabama, to Edward Simmons Sledge, a physician, and Mary Frank Sturdivant Sledge, dean of women students at Huntingdon College.

Eugene Sledge graduated from Murphy High School in Mobile in the spring of 1942.

Eugene Sledge's older brother, Edward Simmons Sledge II, was born on September 10,1920, and was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army after graduating as a cadet from The Citadel.

Eugene Sledge was placed in the V-12 officer training program and was sent to the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he and half of his detachment "flunked out" so they would be allowed to enter immediate service as enlistees and not "miss the war".

Eugene Sledge received a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration in the summer of 1949.

Once an avid hunter, Eugene Sledge gave up his hobby; he found that he could not endure the thought of wounding a bird, and said that killing a deer felt like shooting a cow in a pasture.

Eugene Sledge's father found him weeping after a dove hunt in which Sledge had to kill a wounded dove, and in the ensuing conversations he told his father he could no longer tolerate seeing any suffering.

Eugene Sledge started to assist the conservation department in its banding study efforts, the origin of his well-known passion for the science of ornithology.

Eugene Sledge married Jeanne Arceneaux in 1952 and the couple had two sons, John was born on 1957 and and Henry.

Eugene Sledge returned to Auburn in 1953, where he worked as a research assistant until 1955.

From 1956 to 1960, Eugene Sledge attended the University of Florida and worked as a research assistant.

Eugene Sledge published numerous papers on helminthology and in 1956 joined the Helminthological Society of Washington.

Eugene Sledge received his doctorate in biology from the University of Florida in 1960.

Eugene Sledge was employed by the Division of Plant Industry for the Florida State Department of Agriculture from 1959 to 1962.

Eugene Sledge taught zoology, ornithology, comparative vertebrate anatomy, and other courses during his long tenure there.

Eugene Sledge was popular with his students, and organized field trips and collections around town.

Eugene Sledge died after a long battle with stomach cancer on March 3,2001.

At the urging of his wife, Eugene Sledge began to compile a memoir of his war experiences as a way to better help him cope.

In 1992, Eugene Sledge was featured in the documentary film Peleliu 1944: Horror in the Pacific.

Eugene Sledge was entitled to campaign participation credit for Capture and Occupation of the Southern Palau Islands, and Assault and Occupation of Okinawa Gunto.