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Notes -
I'm not sure if it's exactly what you want, since it's a British perspective and mostly focuses on the less-famous fronts, but George MacDonald Fraser is a fantastic writer IMO. Check them for content/style before you give them to your son, though. I don't know what you consider appropriate reading material.
He has a great, thinly-fictionalised account of his time in Africa after the war. It's very funny and mostly covers the antics that Highland regiments get up to when nobody's watching. It's post-war so there's a few shots fired but no death or gore that I can remember. It's clear-eyed too: there's one part where his squad gets trapped by a rioting crowd of nationalists and only quick thinking by a side character prevents him from having to choose between firing into the crowd and letting them tear his men apart. But in general it's pretty light-hearted and a military family member recommended it to me as the best account of what it's actually like in the army.
Alternatively, he has one non-fiction autobiographical book about his time in Burma which isn't depressing exactly but is probably too adult for your son. (One of his friends gets up to go to the loo, wanders into the wrong place, and gets killed by friendly machine-gun fire; a group of Japanese prisoners mysteriously die when a boulder is rolled on top of their improvised gaol and everyone is very careful not to investigate; Japanese torture is mentioned; there is a lengthy section at the end where he passionately defends dropping nukes on Japan).
I have never seen someone in the wild recommend this author. It's so odd to me that nobody's heard of him around me, because his Flashman series is iconic, and I still find myself thinking of his Quartered Safe Out Here anecdotes (like the one you mentioned, his friend getting cut in half by machine gun friendly fire in the middle of the night, or the one where he randomly stumbled on a Japanese soldier and surprised each other and he unshouldered his rifle and shot him first).
I read all the Flashman books and I greatly appreciate the Three and Four Musketeer films based on the screenplays he wrote. I will readily second the recommendation.
But now I have to ask myself why I haven't read more from the man. I guess it just never occurred to me. Will have to remedy this.
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Greeting, fellow man of culture!
I always remember him saying that people in real life react so exactly like the most hackneyed of Hollywood films that they're completely unwriteable, like the friend who got a bullet in the shoulder and rolled over shouting, "They got me, the rats! They got me!"
That said, I could never get into Flashman. I recognise that they're absolutely gripping yarns, and very well-researched, but the main character is too deliberately unlikeable for me to enjoy spending time with him. I wish GMF had written more books like McAuslan.
I've only read the first Flashman book but it was his unlikeability that made it so enjoyable. The character's utter lack of apology for being so unabashedly self-serving provides a lot of fun.
The first book is where he's the most unlikeable, the latter books increasingly make him trend towards being more of a rascally anti-hero rather than the complete shit he is in the first one. (He's still pretty monstrous in the few following ones but the process has already started.)
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