Everyone needs to read this link below if you want to really know about Merriell A Shelton:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=67861972
I've read through all of these posts and here is what everyone is missing. I was born and raised on the upper Gulf Coast (Alabama to Louisiana) and I knew immediately that Snafu was of Cajun origin in both his talk and looks, especially after seeing a picture of the real Merriell A Shelton. He does not have a Southern drawl. He is of Cajun descent and that is a totally different accent from a traditional New Orleans drawl.
I can see why Sledge and SNAFU became friends in one respect and that is Mobile Alabama has a fairly strong Cajun influence, especially back in the 1930s and 1940s. If you are from Mobile, then you know about New Orleans and it's people and customs and vice versa. I know this because I lived in Mobile for many years. I had Cajun kids in my classrooms. If anything, Sledge didn't anywhere near speak with the old Mobile southern drawlnot even close!
To my ear, SNAFU tried to get into the Cajun manner of speaking and came close from time to time. My point is that he was not trying to be OTT with a southern drawl. Cajuns just naturally chop their words. He did come much closer than Sledge did in portraying the correct manner of speaking.
Some of this may be hard to understand if you are not from the upper Gulf Coast.

i don't get the point of having his character in the series.
he began as a supposed tough guy then suddenly transformed into an emotional sidekick of new recruit.

I would say he was more a 'posterboy for PTSD' than a garden variety a-hole.
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

Couldn't stand the character. He was an unlikeable douche and I was waiting for the whole series for him to die to much disappointment.

Are you not aware that the real Snafu had this problem? Apparently it was quite hard for people to tell what he was saying. Hey that's life man, some people it is hard to tell what they're saying. Suck it up.
Now that I have read the book, I know that he could be hard to understand. I had not read the book when I wrote the original post. But since I am not from them United States, I am not aware of every regional accent and I don't need moral advice - like "suck it up" - from you.

By the end of the second last episode, the actor who played him had got so into the drawl I could no longer decipher what he was saying.
Are you not aware that the real Snafu had this problem? Apparently it was quite hard for people to tell what he was saying. Hey that's life man, some people it is hard to tell what they're saying. Suck it up.
Then I go on to read that you say you don't believe people talked like that back then? ..okay, so out of the millions of Americans back then, you don't think that even one person might have talked like that? Were you there? And again I reiterate - apparently he spoke kinda' like that. From what I've read I actually get the idea that Rami perhaps didn't speak enough like Snafu in the other way, meaning that I get the idea that Snafu was even harder to understand in real life, and Rami sounded like Rami like how he usually sounds, not quite like a considerably indecipherable Louisianan I didn't think.

At first Snafu was also very annoying to me, always being an beep and never leting anyone get too close too him. I guess a lot of people have this issue, until you get to know someone better.
But later on I could see that he is not a bad guy, as he was getting a bit better in his relationship towards Sledge. Also I think he felt sorry for the whole incident with the wet granades, because he started it all in the first place.
When I firt watched Pacific, it was recently after watching his performance in comedy series "War at home" where his charather is gay. This was very awkward for me, because I couldn't switch him from gay teenager, to tough, beep marine.

What fcking ballbag

This post made me laugh.

sounded like he was autistic or had Downes syndrome
Reported. And you sound like just another ignorant, nave, closed minded, uneducated, oblivious person in your knowledge or more appropriately lack thereof of autism. I am autistic. Paddy Considine is autistic. Daryl Hannah is autistic. Gary Numan is autistic. Clay Marzo is autistic. Jessica-Jane Applegate is autistic. Yeah it is true that a symptom of autism is delayed speech but 'ey lets have a look at what the emphasised word there is shall we? Yeah we shall (rhetorical question). The emphasised word is drum roll
delayed
. It's not about the drawl or the accent or any o' that $hit it's about the delayed speech. His speech was not delayed. It did not take him longer to say things. He did not stutter. He did not sound like he was autistic and I think you will find yourself very easily inflicting offense by using conditions such as autism or downs syndrome in such general terms as not more than a tool or a prop for you to use for the purpose of comparison or in the context of a simile. Once again I reiterate - you are reported. And I shall report you again if you respond to me without recanting what you said about autism and downs syndrome. Recant or get reported again.

The character was miscast.
Rami Malek sounded like he was autistic or had Downes syndrome with his bad over the top southern accent.
They should have cast a real southerner instead of some guy from Los Angeles. He was just wrong for the role and it distracted from the film.

No, he wasn't very likable, but he did develop and he added so much to the series, including an understanding of how men lost their humanity. The actor who played himRemy Mallick (sp?) was thoroughly deserving of an award. a great portrayal.
"He was running around like a rooster in a barnyard full of ducks."Pat Novak

Exactly! It was the incongruity of the situation that rattled Sledge. To go from the hell of combat to having a pretty nurse serve lemonade was surreal. Remember that Sledge said "What the hell are they doing here? ". Then to have a REMF Lt. get wise with you was the last straw.
I thought that the guy who played Sledge was outstanding and deserved an Jemmy.

I don't think it has anything to do with admiring pretty nurses. He wasn't admiring them so much as he was confused and irritated that they were there. Then, when the officer says "You've had your look-see, now move along" Sledge gives the officer the same look he gave the nurses.
He wasn't admiring them in the way the lieutenant thought he was admiring them. I didn't take it as him being irritated by their presence. I took as him being stunned by their beauty in contrast to the things he a witnessed in battle. From the mud, death and decay of the battlefield to those nurses in their pure white uniforms. Then when he saw the blond he was swept away, almost in awe. The way he admired the flower in the final scene, and then spent the rest of his life studying the wonder and beauty of nature.
The lieutenant took at as just a horny Marine checking out the babes. The look Sledge gave him was not the same. That look was from a battle hardened killer to the clean cut, inexperienced young officer, like don't tread on me !@#hole. And the officer immediately backed down.

I don't think it has anything to do with admiring pretty nurses. He wasn't admiring them so much as he was confused and irritated that they were there. Then, when the officer says "You've had your look-see, now move along" Sledge gives the officer the same look he gave the nurses.
SNAFU is a difficult character because there's multiple marines that were meant to portray through SNAFU. Shelton was more "real" in certain scenes but essentially, Sledge and Shelton became friends and the exhaustion of war or the memories kept them from talking to each other until Sledge published With the Old Breed decades later.

I just read a description of Merriel Shelton as a small and excitable character who was always in some sort of trouble - hence the nickname "Snafu".
He is also described as argumentative and on occasions, almost incapable of speaking intelligible English.
Not what Rami Malek was playing at all, though the drawl has some reason behind it.

Once I started reading it, I really couldn't put it down. Sledge's writing is really gripping, and as many people have mentioned, it is a memoir that can be read by a seasoned Marine or a civilian with no military experience, and can be understood equally.
"Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see."

Yeah, I thought he was probably a mash up of several characters. It also doesn't surprise me that there were things people did which could not be translated into television.
The Snafu character is pretty important to the series because his problems are a subject which is almost never discussed. This is the sort of thing which separates
The Pacific
from so many other movies and series of the genre. It must have been hard to make that character work without offending the real man's family. I'm sure they knew what they meant.
Still haven't got around to reading my copy of Sledge's booktime has rather caught up with me these past few weeks.

Absolutely.
I recently read Sledge's memoir, 'With the Old Breed', and it seems like the producers of The Pacific portrayed Snafu as an amalgamation of several Marines in his book. Sledge describes one man in particular, named Mac, who did some pretty disturbing things that wouldn't have even been possible to recreate in the show, in my opinion.
"Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see."

I felt that he definitely stood out more amongst the other Marines, but not necessarily because the actor's performance was hammy or overdone. His southern, New Orleans accent didn't bother me, and his awkward mannerisms and sociopathic nature were unsettling.
I suppose every war film has an actor portraying the "psycho soldier", but here he seemed like a good counterpart to Sledge's innocence.
I figured a few would see him that way and that's fair enough. For what it's worth, I think that was the intention. I didn't have a problem with his accent but I think he over did it. For me it was hammy, as you put it and over done. By the end of the second last episode, I couldn't understand him any more.
But as you also said, his sociopathic nature was definitely unsettling. Unlike all the other marines, he didn't seem to be on edge in battle. Now, that may be an advantage or a disadvantage but it's certainly a pointer to a deep seated problem.

That's an interesting take on that scene. I reacted more to the part where the officer tells Sledge to move along, and Sledge gives him the icy, hard stare, as if to say, "I've just been through Hell on earth. I'm going to stand here and admire the pretty nurse as long as I want to."
It seemed like Sledge was taken aback by the surreal nature of the scene in front of him, after what he'd just experienced.
As far as Snafu is concerned, I felt that he definitely stood out more amongst the other Marines, but not necessarily because the actor's performance was hammy or overdone. His southern, New Orleans accent didn't bother me, and his awkward mannerisms and sociopathic nature were unsettling.
I suppose every war film has an actor portraying the "psycho soldier", but here he seemed like a good counterpart to Sledge's innocence.
"Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see."

Pretty much agree with all of that, including the bit about Band of Brothers (I'm probably the only person here who didn't like that series all that much).
The USO nurses would have seemed so incongruous to Sledge that they probably touched a bit of a raw nerve. While I suppose it was a kindly gesture done in good faith, he's still got battle scenes in his head with people getting killed around him. I've never been in combat but if I try to put myself in his position, I lean towards the same sort of response. The setup just seems trite. How could any of those people be sympathetic when they don't really have any idea of what happened?

That was a pretty bizarre gripe I had, but I thought a few of the scenes were just a bit awkward. In the scene where they had returned to Pavuvu after weeks of hell on Peleliu, and the USO had nurses giving the soldiers pineapple juice, why did Sledge react the way he did? He was angry, but what is the source of this anger? I still don't really understand it.
There are similar scenes after he returns to Mobile.
I completely agree with what you say about stereotypical casting of Marines. I that sense, I liked most of the casting for this series. We don't get many of the ultra macho, colorful, over the top types. IMO, there are too many of those types in the cast of BoB.
There is one difference to consider though. The guys in the 101st Airborne had been training together for two years before the drop into Normandy, so perhaps they were a little older, and had developed stronger camaraderie. By contrast, most of the Marines who saw combat as early as the summer of 1942, had come directly from basic. There were probably more 17 and 18 year olds.
I'm a civilian, I'm not a trout

This sounds sort of crazy, but I remember posters asking if he was gay or not. Obviously he wasn't in real life, but in the performance given by Mazzello, I can sort of see why people wonder.
You could probably find a similar question on almost
any
IMBD board!
That said, I think you have his character right; quietly and intensely religious, strong sense of duty and probably not one for hi-jinx. What I would say though is that I think a lot of audiences subconsciously expect stereotypical Marines: big guys exuding wholesale amounts of machismo. You and I know that, in real life, people are more varied than that. In wartime you will get a much wider range of people enlisting and they will not necessarily fit the "Marine from Central Casting" image. But that isn't the same as appearing gay.