The thin red line / James Jones.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

They are the men of C-for-Charlie company--"Mad" 1st Sgt. Eddie Welsh, Pvt. 1st Class Don Doll, Pvt. John Bell, Capt. James Stein, Cpl. Fife, and dozens more just like them--infantrymen who are about to land, grim and white-faced, on an atoll in the Pacific called Guadalcanal. This is their story, a shatteringly realistic walk into hell and back.
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In the days ahead, some will earn medals, others will do anything they can dream up to get evacuated before they land in a muddy grave. But they will all discover the thin red line that divides the sane from the mad--and the living from the dead--in this unforgettable portrait that captures for all time the total experience of men at war.
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Foreword by Francine Prose
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"Brutal, direct, and powerful . . . The men are real, the words are real, death is real, imminent and immediate."-- Los Angeles Times
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"A rare and splendid accomplishment . . . strong and ambitious, spacious, and as honest as any novel ever written."-- Newsweek
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"[A] major novel of combat in World War II . . . reminiscent of Stephen Crane in The Red Badge of Courage ."-- The Christian Science Monitor
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" The Thin Red Line moves so intensely and inexorably that it almost seems like the war it is describing."-- The New York Times Book Review