Welcome to war

“You pull the pin out of a hand grenade, and in a few seconds it explodes and men in a small area get killed and wounded.  That makes bodies to be buried, hurt men to be treated.  It makes widows and fatherless children and bereaved parents.  It means pension machinery, and it makes for pacifism in some and for lasting hatred in others.  Again, a man out of the danger area sees the carnage the grenade creates, and he shoots himself in the foot.  Another man had been standing there just two minutes before the thing went off, and thereafter he believes in God or a rabbit’s foot.  Another man sees human brains for the first time and locks up the picture until one night years later, when he finally comes out with a description of what he saw, and the horror of his description turns his wife away from him.” — John O’Hara, Appointment in Samarra