Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
Everything, everything in war is barbaric... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
I have just come from a couple of raids, where we had a very lively time, and some of them had to pull their guns. I found it necessary to punch a few sports myself.
I don't only long for the thrill of being in the middle of a war, I must understand it; I must make other people understand.
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat?
I've gone to war zones before and never got shot.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.
Combat is a piece of war. But war is a totalizing, uncivilized experience.