Analyst's note:  War is a very tough and dirty business to which we subject our young men and now young women.  That is one reason we prefer not to be involved in it except when absolutely necessary.  We have military rules for such things, so use them and get on with the fight.  I wish we still had Ernie Pyle on the job.  Ernie at least recognized and understood the problem:

"I've been immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is confused. The hurt has become too great.

War makes strange giant creatures out of us little routine men who inhabit the earth.

At last we are in it up to our necks, and everything is changed, even your outlook on life.

But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.

I was away from the front lines for a while this spring, living with other troops, and considerable fighting took place while I was gone. When I got ready to return to my old friends at the front I wondered if I would sense any change in them.

The front-line soldier wants it to be got over by the physical process of his destroying enough Germans to end it. He is truly at war. The rest of us, no matter how hard we work, are not."

Semper Fidelis!