I recommend reading, "The Old Breed" about WwIi in the Pacific. This is an amazing display of empathy given the circumstances. The book is horrifying... >[you could not dig a mortar pit anywhere on the island without uncovering human remains...](#spoiler) Author, now a history professor, joined the Marines as a mortar gunner. Was clearly instructed not to keep a diary. Kept one anyway (historian). Writes a book about it.