This is a historical novel about The United States Marine Corps in the Pacific theatre during WWII.
It is not an account of sweeping strategies and bold tactics of admirals and generals. It's a story about the "gyrenes," the "devil dogs" of Alpha Company, a rifle company fighting in the island-hopping campaign that brought the war to the doorstep of Imperial Japan.
The Marines fought two enemies: the fanatical and tenacious Imperial Japanese Army and the jungle.
The jungle was as formidable an enemy as the Japanese. A poisonous morass, alive with biting, stinging, sucking insects. Spiders as big as a man's fist and wasps as long as his finger. And malarial mosquitoes. Clouds of them, following the Marines around like a humming shadow. Swarms of filthy black and green flies competed with the men for their food and fed on the dead. Open wounds and cuts became festering ulcers. A steaming, sweltering, insect-infested collection of islands. When it was hot, it became a steam bath. When the rains came, which was often, it became soggy with soft, squishy, stinking decomposing vegetation. There were two seasons of weather: wet and wetter.
Letters from home were read as soon as received before they disintegrated into a sodden mess. Precious cigarettes were stored underneath helmets, lit by matches kept dry inside condoms. Hot chow was soon turned into a cold wet slop by the rains. Machine gun bullets had to be removed from their belts and oiled almost daily so they wouldn't jam the guns. Rifles also needed to be oiled daily against molding.
Always there was the jungle. And the jungle killed.