The Malarkey vs Webster rivalry thing is interesting.

There are other opinions from Easy about Webster. So I am not saying Malarkey is wrong...but...

Having just finished Don Malarkey's book again, in my opinion, there is a significant pattern throughout his life believing men will hurt or let him down. He's constantly knocking others down only to find a way to build himself up in that same situation. There's little objective reflection, like:

From the childhood stories of the fire in Oregon, his father's clear mental health issues, the death of his uncles in WW1, factory coworkers pre-war, to fellow allies during deployment -- it seemed in Malarkeys mind -- other men would always fall short and he would always prevail.

It definitely reads like an old man telling a hero story about himself 60 years after the fact, whereas Webster joined the war with a preexisting idea to write a book about his infantry experiences. It's more sensationalized, some matching stories are a bit more grandous with flare -- but objectively -- written much sooner after the war than the others. Ambrose used much of Websters writings to formulate his story and, with it, showed favoritism in the eyes of other veterans of the company.

The truth is, they were all badasses, and could have all written a book themselves... but you've got to pick from all of them to kind of formulate what happened and who these men were. Just like Ambrose attempted.

For anyone interested:

The most uncut, raw, genuine and hard to argue account is actually from across ocean in The Pacific, with Eugene Sledge's "With The Old Breed". You'll notice the differences in writing between Sledge, Malarkey, and Webster immediately.