They were mostly French, a few Arabs, and despite their uniforms they didn't look very important any more. Later I learned that if you watch men die, especially if you've known them at all, they still look important afterward no matter what you have to do with them, but I was inexperienced then.

That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away. And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.

У обочины, среди живописных кусточков, стояли два креста — простые, деревянные, с надетыми на них немецкими касками. На холмиках были положены и цветы, но они давно сгнили и высохли. Вот, наверное, где-то в Германии матери плачут или остались дети. Отцы не приедут с чемоданами, полными барахла и велосипедных звонков. Стоило переться в такую даль, чтоб в конце концов гнить под ржавеющей каской? И есть ли вообще в мире что-нибудь такое, ради чего стоит гнить под ржавеющей каской? Столетия идут за столетиями, и убитые гниют то за одно, то за другое, а потом оказывается, что все то было напрасно, а нужно, оказывается, гнить совсем за третье... [130]

Every now and then a green dot shifted to yellow. A soldier down, their armored suits detecting the injuries or death that rendered them combat ineffective. Combat ineffective. Such a nice euphemism for one of his kids bleeding out.

I have gone to war and now I can issue my complaint. I can sit on my porch and complain all day. And you must listen. Some of you will say to me: You signed the contract, you crying bitch, and you fought in a war because of your signature, no one held a gun to your head. This is true, but because I signed the contract and fulfilled my obligation to fight one of America’s wars, I am entitled to speak, to say, I belong to a fucked situation.