The Army Consists Of The First Infantry

War Is Life Multiplied By Some Number That No One Has Ever Heard Of.

Firemen Don't Talk About Whether A Burning Warehouse Is Worth Saving.

Society Can Give Its Young Men Almost Any Job And They'll Figure How To Do It. They'll Suffer For It And Die For It And Watch Their Friends Die For It, But In The End, It Will Get Done. That Only Means That Society Should Be Careful About What It Asks For. ... Soldiers Themselves Are Reluctant To Evaluate The Costs Of War, But Someone Must. That Evaluation, Ongoing And Unadulterated By Politics, May Be The One Thing A Country Absolutely Owes The Soldiers Who Defend Its Borders.

During The Air War Of 1944, A Four-man Combat Crew On A B-17 Bomber Took A Vow To Never Abandon One Another No Matter How Desperate The Situation. The Aircraft Was Hit By Flak During A Mission And Went Into A Terminal Dive, And The Pilot Ordered Everyone To Bail Out. The Top Turret Gunner Obeyed The Order, But The Ball Turret Gunner Discovered That A Piece Of Flak Had Jammed His Turret And He Could Not Get Out. The Other Three Men In His Pact Could Have Bailed Out With The Parachutes, But They Stayed With Him Until The Plan Hit The Ground And Exploded. They All Died.

I Went To Afghanistan In '96 To Write About Terrorist Training Camps South Of Jalalabad And Tora Bora, In The Mountains. I Was There Right Before The Taliban Took Over, Literally A Few Weeks Before They Took Kabul. The Frontline Wasn't Terribly Active, But It Was Definitely There. And They Swept Into Power.