That idea is very much at the fore in E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed, which I finished a week or so ago. This book is *the* definitive account of what it was like to be a front line Marine in the latter half of the Pacific War.
I read that book for the first time within the last couple of years (how I missed that one, I can’t say) and I must say, it was a powerful, powerful book.