Taking the central Pacific island of Peleliu cost the United States the highest casualty rate of any amphibious attack in its history, according to war historian Martin Gilbert. In 11 days, 9,171 Americans were killed. At Okinawa, the lead-up to the anticipated invasion of mainland Japan, 7,613 Americans were killed on land and 4,907 in air and kamikaze attacks at sea. More than 127,000 Japanese soldiers and 80,000 civilians died.

The hardships of the war in the Pacific were multi-layered. There were the 115-degree heat and high humidity of Peleliu and the unrelenting rain and cold of Okinawa. There were Peleliu's coral reefs and sands that cut flesh and wore down the heels of combat boots; and Okinawa's mud that sucked the boots off sore feet and made every movement hard labor.

Then there was the enemy. The savagery of al-Qaida pales to that of the warriors of imperial Japan, who fought to the death and wantonly murdered women and children as today's jihadists do, but were far better trained and equipped to kill. The Japanese soldier in the Pacific mutilated his American victims, displayed their bodily limbs and organs in fearful warning of what lay ahead.

What makes Sledge's memoir perhaps forever contemporary is what it tells all Americans who benefit from these miseries of others. Returning U.S. Marines, wrote Sledge, "tried to comprehend people who griped because America wasn't perfect, or their coffee wasn't hot enough, or they had to stand in line and wait for a train or bus. . . . We just wished that people back home could understand how lucky they were and stop complaining about trivial inconveniences."

To me today is all about putting things in perspective. A day to stop complaining about my problems, and think about what these guys went through for all of us.