On Company Mentality

I'm reading With The Old Breed by E. B. Sledge, one of the Holy Trinity of Marine memoirs from the Pacific (the other two being William Manchester's Goodbye, Darkness and Robert Leckie's Strong Men Armed). "Sledgehammer" joined the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, before they landed on Peleliu, and served on a 60mm mortar crew. Although he never crossed paths with the 24th Marines, Sledge makes an excellent point about the feelings Marines had for their particular company.

In this passage, Sledge is prepaing to head out on a combat patrol on Peleliu.

We picked up extra rations and ammunition as we filed through the company lines exchanging parting remarks with friends. Heading into the thick scrub brush, I felt pretty lonesome, like a little boy going to spend his first night away from home. I realized that Company K had become my home. No matter how bad a situation was with the company, it was still home to me. It was not just a lettered company in a numbered battalion in a numbered regiment in a numbered division. It meant far more than that. It was home; it was "my" company, I belonged in it and nowhere else.

Most Marines I knew felt the same way about "their" companies in whatever battalion, regiment, or Marine division they happened to be. This was the result of, or maybe a cause for, our strong esprit de corps. The Marine Corps wisely acknowledged this unit attachment. Men who recovered from wounds and returned to duty nearly always came home to their old company. This was not misplaced sentimentality but a strong contributor to high morale. A man felt that he belonged to his unit and had a niche among buddies whom he knew and with whom he shared a mutual respect welded in combat. This sense of family was particularly important in the infantry, where survival and combat efficiency often hinged on how well men could depend on one another.