Between tedium and terror

the long version

This unique record of action in the Pacific is the personal journal of a young American soldier, Sy Kahn. Written under trying conditions and contrary to military regulations, the diary provided the writer both sanity and sanctuary - a foxhole of the mind - in an often violent, irrational world. A bookish nineteen-year-old who was the youngest soldier in his company, Kahn recorded in almost daily entries both the immediacy of danger and the tedium of relentless work, Heat, humidity, and routine. His wartime odyssey took him to Australia, New Guinea, other South Pacific islands, and a D-day landing on Luzon. Surviving four campaigns and over 300 air attacks, Kahn and his company finally were sent to occupy Yokohama shortly after two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.