August 28, 2005
An American in Iraq
Kerry Dupont is travel blogging in Iraq. She has guts. Go read.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at August 28, 2005 02:38 AMFrom A Farewell to Arms (1932)
[Gino] "Have you ever noticed the difference [food] makes in the way you think?"
"Yes," I said. "It can't win a war but it can lose one."
"We won't talk about losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain."
I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene besides the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rives, the numbers of regiments and the dates. Gino was a patriot, so he said things that separated us sometimes, but he was also a fine boy and I understood his being a patriot. He was born one. He left with Peduzzi in the car to go back to Gorizia.
Posted by: NeoDude at August 28, 2005 09:24 AMBoth sides all say these things in war.
And yet one side wins.
neodude, which side do you want to win?
Posted by: Aaron at August 28, 2005 11:33 AMMichael, thanks for linking to Ms. Dupont. A remarkable lady.
Posted by: Mark Poling at August 29, 2005 08:54 AM
