A Great Bit of Writing

This is Remarque's introduction to his classic novel of the horrors of trench warfare, All Quiet on the Western Front:

"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a con-
fession, and least of all an adventure, for death is
not an adventure to those who stand face to face
with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of
men who, even though they may have escaped its
shells, were destroyed by the war."

Now that is a damn powerful paragraph.

Reading that, I can't help but think of the high suicide rate among our active troops now.

In fact, I just read in a Newsweek article on the connection between war and medical breakthroughs (the connection being there is an urgent need - and plenty of government money kicked in - to improve medicine as well as plenty of opportunities to test the improvements) that the soldiers who have the highest suicide rates are those who have lost their faces (yes, you're reading that right). They have escaped the shells but - as Remargue notes - were destroyed by the war. As are so many others who return forever changed.

I am also reminded of my recent conversation with a Korean War vet and his remark aimed at those who support the war ("You'd be running the other way as soon as a bullet zipped by your ear"). So few of us can even imagine what takes place in war. Which, of course, is why we have books like All Quiet on the Western Front. It's just too bad humans can never learn from them. In fact, the older I get, the more I think that the true nature of humanity is not peace and acceptance but war and greed.