Rank: Private First Class

Enlisted: 18 January 1942

MCSN: 351391

Unit 1: Company "H", 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

Unit 2:Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

Discharged: 13 September 1945

Decorations: Navy Commendation Medal w/ Combat "V" device, Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon

Robert Leckie saw combat at Guadalcanal, Finsschafen, Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu. After being badly wounded on Peleliu in September 1944, he was sent back to the United States. After recovering from his wounds, he spent the rest of the war guarding a submarine base. He was discharged from the Marines in September 1945.

After the war, he returned to his job at the New Jersey newspaper The Bergen Record. He would go on to author over forty books, including his classic World War II memoir: Helmet For My Pillow. This book was one of three that would go on to serve as the basis of the HBO mini-series The Pacific, in which Leckie was portrayed by actor James Badge Dale. The other books on which The Pacific was based were With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge and Red Blood, Black Sand by Chuck Tatum.