The crowd, still shouting, gives way before us. We plough our way through. Women hold their aprons over their faces and go stumbling away. A roar of fury goes up. A wounded man is being carried off.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The brave men die in war. It takes great luck or judgment not to be killed. Once, at least, the head has to bow and the knee has to bend to danger. The soldiers who march back under the triumphal arches are death's deserters.
Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain.
When we got down from the ambulances there were sharp cracks about us as bursts of shrapnel splashed down upon the Town Hall square. Dead soldiers lay outside and I glanced at them coldly. We were in search of the living.
Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint of despair, that sliver of malice, that makes them think, 'Aha, here is the story.'
A tragedy's first act is crowded with supporting players, policeman scribbling in pads and making radio calls, witnesses crimping their faces, EMS guys folding equipment.
How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?
Man appears for a little while to laugh and weep, to work and play, and then to go to make room for those who shall follow him in the never-ending cycle.
Laughter and grief join hands. Always the heart Clumps in the breast with heavy stride; The face grows lined and wrinkled like a chart, The eyes bloodshot with tears and tide. Let the wind blow, for many a man shall die.
The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.