Robert Leckie: Who's Almost Who In KV History

Leckie worked at the Journal American. He walked the streets of the 4th Ward.
his bio

Robert Leckie (December 18, 1920 – December 24, 2001) was an American author of popular books on the military history of the United States. As a young man, he served in the Marine Corps with the 1st Marine Division during World War II. His experiences as a machine gunner and intelligence scout during the Battle of Guadalcanal and later campaigns are said to have greatly influenced his writing.
Leckie was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 18, 1920 to an Irish Catholic family of eight children. He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began his professional writing career, before World War II, at age 16 as a sports writer for The Record of Hackensack in Hackensack.
In 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in the 1st Marine Division. He participated in every major 1st Marine Division campaign except Okinawa. Robert Leckie was wounded by blast concussion on Peleliu and evacuated, ending his combat tenure.
Following World War II, Leckie worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the Buffalo Courier-Express, the New York Journal American, the New York Daily News and The Star-Ledger. His first and best-selling book, Helmet for My Pillow, a personal war memoir, was published in 1957.[3] Leckie subsequently wrote more than 40 books on American war history, spanning from the French and Indian War (1754–1763) to Desert Storm (1991). Robert Leckie died in 2001 after fighting a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
Leckie's war memoirs, Helmet for My Pillow, along with Eugene B. Sledge's book With the Old Breed, formed the basis for the 2010 HBO series The Pacific, the successor to Band of Brothers. He was portrayed in the miniseries by James Badge Dale.