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THB WARRJ:ORS
I

Reflections on, Men in Battle

1. GLENN GRAY

With a Foreword, 1970,

by the Author

Introduction by
Hannah Arendt

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS

LINCOLN AND LONDON

INDIANA UNIVERSITY
SOUTH BHID

SCHURZ LIBRARY



TO URSULA, MY WIFE,

FORMERLY ONE OF "THE ENEMY"

© 1959 by J. Glenn Gray
Introduction © 1967 by Hannah Arendt
Foreword, 1970, © 1970 by J. Glenn Gray
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

First Bison Books printing: 1998

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gray, J. Glenn (Jesse Glenn), 1913-1977.
The warriors: reflections on men in battle / J. Glenn Gray; with a new
foreword, 1970, by the author; introduction by Hannah Arendt.
p. cm.

Originally published: 1st. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959.
ISBN 0-8032-7076-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. War. 2. World War, 1939-1945-Personal narratives, American.
1. Title.
U21.G75 1998
355.02-dc21
98-8030 CIP

Reprinted by arrangement with the author.



CONTENTS

Page vii Introduction
by Hannah Arendt

xv Foreword, 1970

xxiii A Note to the Reader

3 CHAPTER ONE

Remembering War and Forgetiulness

25 CHAPTER TWO

The Enduring Appeals 0/ Battle

59 CHAPTER THREE

Love: War's Ally and Foe

97 CHAPTER FOUR

The Soldier's Relations to Death

131 CHAPTER FIVE

Images oj the Enemy

171 CHAPTER SIX

The Ache oj Guilt

215 CONCLUSION
The Future oj War



C'lt is quite in keeping with man's
curious intellectual history that
the simplest and most important
questions are those he asks least ojten:"

-NORMAN ANGELL

:11'.' �

Someth�
it was p
uon't g
ena up
eVerrthl
printea
succes a
otherwi�
rear ou

this rulfj
tellectua
exceptio



INTRODUCTION

HANNAH ARENDT

Something strange and disquieting happened to this book when
it was published seven years ago. As a rule, very good books
don't go unnoticed, just as we hope that only very bad books
end up on the junk piles in editorial offices. To be sure, almost
everything imaginable can and does happen to the majority of
printed matter which must fall between such extremes-neglect,
succes d'estime, best-seller list; and since this could hardly be
otherwise in view of the flood of publications which, year in and
year out, deluge critics and readers alike, much depends upon
this rule for the presence of a minimum of standards and in­

tellectual integrity in the general climate of our culture. But

exceptions prove the rule, and when we see that Glenn Gray's

Vll



INTRODUCTION

The Warriors is among them, we can only pray that they may
be rare. The book was almost entirely overlooked when it first

appeared, and yet, by force of sheer availability on the market,
it has acquired, slowly and surely, its own circle of not just
admirers but lovers, a group of readers in very different walks
of life who cherished it as a triumph of personal discovery and,
perhaps for this very personal reason, began to think of its
author in terms of affinity, closeness and affection, which are

very rarely felt even in the presence of masterpieces. So let us
console ourselves with the hope that such fraternal welcome,
unmediated by critical and public opinion, awaits those authors
who, for one reason or another, have not been sucked into the
dubious mainstream of notoriety.

Moreover, with regard to this book, there is something oddly
appropriate to its slow and intimate success. The author, an

intelligence officer during the second World War, tells what he
experienced and learnt during more than four years of battle
and enemy occupation; and since this particular warrior, of
whom a friend even then had "thought as the soldier," hap­
pened to be a philosopher (he received, ironically enough, his
induction notice into the Army with the same mail that brought
him his doctorate from Columbia University) it took him four­
teen years of remembrance and reflection to understand and

come to terms with what had happened in these four years. This
much time was needed to learn "simplicity" and to unlearn "the
simplification of abstract thinking," to become fluent in the art
and the language of "concrete" thoughts and feelings, and thus
to comprehend that both abstract notions and abstract emotions
are not merely false to what actually happens but are viciously
interconnected; for "abstract thinking is strictly comparable to
the inhumanity of abstract emotions," the love and hatred of
collectives-my own people, the enemy, especially in wartime,

viii

or, Jine

blind a
as pred

Hene
iliatilie
"acivili
be mor,

course,

hold ab
one for

tions flendura
greate
becam

agree tl

perish I
oneself

�m, n
which

only co
fighting
fidelity
whose f

war is
I

voice t

modes�
on ilie �
read his



tbe� may
ben it fast
tbe market,
ot not just

in wartime,

or, finally and in a mood of disillusionment, either hatred of or
blind allegiance to "mankind collectively [which] is doubtless
as predisposed to injustice as nations are."

Hence, the first lesson to be learned on the battlefield was
that the closer you were to the enemy, the less did you hate him­

"a civilian far removed from the battle area is nearly certain to
be more bloodthirsty than the front-line soldier," unless, of
course, the soldier happens to be a killer, and only pacifists who
hold abstract notions and emotions about war will mistake the

one for the other. Thus, "soldiers who cherished concrete emo­
tions found the moral atmosphere at the front so much more
endurable than in rear areas that they willingly accepted the
greater strain and personal danger of combat." These soldiers
became our author's spiritual brothers for they, too, would
agree that Nietzsche was "surely right" when he wrote:

" 'Rather

perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make
oneself hated and feared.'

" And the second lesson was that no

ism, not nationalism and not even patriotism, no emotion in
which men can be indoctrinated and then manipulated, but
only comradeship, the "loyalty to the group is the essence of
fighting morale." This self-taught concreteness, an unswerving
fidelity to the real, as difficult to achieve for the philosopher,
whose formal education had been abstract thought, as for the
common run of men who indulge in no less abstract feelings and
emotions, is the hallmark of this singularly earnest and beauti­
ful book.

What must strike the reader to begin with in a book about
war is its peculiar stillness, the softly reflecting tone of this
voice that never teaches or preaches but tells in the greatest
modesty what the author remembers. The remembrance begins
on the first page; after fourteen years, Gray has begun to re­
read his war journals and letters. This sets the scene. He finds

ix



INTRODUCTION

them "sad and laughable and strange" as they remind him of
Plato's description of the people in limbo at the end of The
Republic. But they also make him aware of how much he has
forgotten, of an "absence of continuity between those years and
what I have become," and now he is afraid "to continue to
forget" since such oblivion might indeed confirm "the deepest
fear of my war years ... that these happenings had no real
purpose," that they "might well signify nothing or nothing
much." This fear, he confesses, "is still with me." From which
we may conclude that he never forgot but that only now the time
had come to tell.

Surprisingly enough-as though he did not know how much
what he has to tell would go against the grain of fashionable
convictions and modern sensibilities in these matters-he begins
his tale with "the enduring appeals of battle:" the "confra­
ternity of danger;" the "powerful fascination" of the "spec­
tacular;" the "poignancy and intensity" of life in the face of
death, for "just as the bliss of erotic love is conditioned by its
transiency, so life is sweet because of the threats of death that
envelop it;" the "lightheartedness" that comes from being
"liberated from our individual impotence and [getting] drunk
with the power that union with our fellows brings," a feeling
akin to intense aesthetic pleasure when we are so absorbed by
its objects that our "ego deserts us" and we feel no longer "shut
up within the walls of the self and delivered over to the insuffi­
ciencies of the ego;" finally, the wondrous "compulsiveness" of
love in wartime when "it falls upon us 'like a mountain wind
upon an oak, shaking us leaf and bough,' in the striking simile
of the poet Sappho." Gray sums up these enduring appeals,
quoting General Robert E. Lee's remark, "It is well that war is
so terrible-we would grow too fond of it," in the word "ecstasy"
that occurs again and again; for what all these experiences have

x

nature,

and tha

ship bu
down tl
andke
is who]
other

farthes
of the
aroused

Re·re
ilius de]
pleasun
abouth
and de1
and recl
about "I
stereot�
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smallest

nation),
ecstasy,
andwit�



no Ion O'er "��ijl

r 10 iliein5�'
uhirene.'''o!
ountain w!n�

,uiking sim!l�
rinu appeal!,
II that war!!
rd "ecstasy"

in common is that men are literally standing, or rather thrown,
outside their selves, whether their

" 'I' passes insensibly into
a 'we' " or they feel so much "part of this circling world", so
much alive that, in seeming paradox, death no longer matters
to them. It is easy to agree that erotic love is of such an ecstatic

nature, but the point of the matter is that comradeship is too,
and that friendship is not just a more intense form of comrade­
ship but its very opposite: "While comradeship wants to break
down the walls of self, friendship seeks to expand these walls
and keep them intact. The one relationship is ecstatic, the other
is wholly individual," the one is amoral (not immoral), the
other guided by moral responsibility. But since all morality
depends upon self-awareness, and hence a certain amount of
self-love, self-sacrifice is inspired by comradeship rather than
by friendship; for "friendship makes life doubly dear," and the
"unendurable fear that grips friends on the battlefield is at the
farthest remove from the recklessness of the soldier-killer" and
of the "love for self-sacrifice" which, as we well know, can be
aroused with equal ease for good and bad causes.

Re-reading the book, one is tempted to quote endlessly and
thus deprive the reader of his own discoveries and the great
pleasure that goes with them. On the surface of it, this is a book
about homo furens and homo sapiens, but in fact it is about life
and death, love, friendship, and comradeship, about courage
and recklessness, about sensuality and the "surge of vitality",
about "inhuman cruelty" and "superhuman kindness," not as
stereotype opposites but as simultaneously present in the same
person, (for "war compresses the greatest opposites into the
smallest space and the shortest time," that is its greatest fasci­

nation), and at the end about conscience, the very opposite of
ecstasy, since conscience means "to set oneself against others
and with one stroke lose their comforting presence." To be sure,

xi



INTRODUCTION

these are no more nor less than the elementary data of human
existence but "unless human beings are pushed to the extreme,
we are not so likely to confront simple and primal realities," or
to reflect about them.

Opposition to war comes easy today and for Glenn Gray it
is a matter of course. It did not need Hiroshima and Nagasaki
nor the fact that even in World War II more civilians were killed
than soldiers in combat to teach him "the ache of guilt" which
to his great surprise has been almost totally neglected in con­
temporary novels that deal so freely with every other agony
of combat. Among the great merits of the book is that it makes
opposition to war forceful and convincing by not denying the
realities and by not just warning us but making us understand
why "there is in many today as great a fear of a sterile and un­
exciting peace as of a great war." And to make his point, he
tells the story of a Frenchwoman whom he had known in the
years of dangers and sufferings and then met again in peace
and comfortable circumstance. She said: "Anything is better
than to have nothing at all happen day after day. You know that
I do not love war or want it to return. But at least it made me
feel alive, as I have not felt alive before or since." Gray com­
ments: "Peace exposed a void in them that war's excitement
had enabled them to keep covered up," and he warns of the
"emptiness within us," of the exultation of those who feel bound
"to something greater than the self." Could boredom be more
terrifying than all of war's terrors?

The book, in its undemonstrative subdued fashion, turns
about a little episode that happened in the hills of the Apen­
nines. There, not too far away from the front lines, he had en­
countered an old man, illiterate and apparently a hermit, who
was peacefully smoking his pipe in the neighborhood of no

xii

welCOJ
old m
which
was go
the two

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of human living being except his donkey. The soldier was immediately
welcomed beside him on the grass because it turned out that the
old man was greatly mystified by the din and dust of battle
which could be seen in the distance; he did not know that a war
was going on. This was strange enough. But it was stranger that
the two men, the soldier and the hermit, "began to talk at once
of important things as naturally as if we knew one another well."
Here our author was again confronted with "simple and primal
realities," but now far away from the exultation of war and the
extremities of battle, in "peaceableness and sanity," where the
"familiar and the evident" seemed no longer remote because two
men could share, outside, so to speak, of history, their concern
about "the important questions: Who am I? Why am I? What
is my function in life?" This was fraternity, and it was possible
because one of them, the old man and hermit, was blessed with
"the gift of simplicity" and the other, soldier and philosopher,
had been stripped of his normal sophistications, of all that is
subtly false in what we teach and learn. For this is what had
happened: "The professors who had taught me philosophy and
for whom I had had great respect and esteem became all at once

puny in my imagination .... Even the great thinkers of Western
civilization seemed suddenly to lose their stature and become
only human beings.... Their wisdom was almost grotesquely
inadequate for the occasion." No such wisdom could be ex­
pected from the illiterate peasant beside him on the grass; his
company was not inadequate. Both were outside civilization,
outside tradition and culture, the soldier because war had
thrown him into one of those lonely foxholes with nothing to
keep him company but "watching the stars at night," the hermit
because it was "as though he had sprung from nature herself ...
her authentic child;" so the one had unlearnt and the other never

xiii



INTRODUCTION

possessed "the arrogance" that makes men "exaggerate the
significance of the human story in relation to the rest of nature's
household. "

The book concludes as it should with reflections about "the
future of war" and the prospects for "eternal peace." Rejecting
optimism and pessimism as equally "irrelevant" and convinced
that "peace will never occur as a consequence of weakness, ex­
haustion, or fear," he hopes that the day will come when the
strong and the mighty-"a people distinguished by wars and
victories," in the words of Nietzsche, quoted by the author-will
" 'break the sword' " because they can afford to say "that men
ought to choose death twice in preference to being feared and
hated" and that "survival without integrity of conscience is
worse than perishing outright." Nowhere perhaps than in these
passages does one understand better that Glenn Gray's friend
thought of him as "the soldier." For they express but the last
and, under today's circumstances, inevitable conclusions of the
soldier's basic credo-that life is not the highest good.

New York, February, 1966

xiv

Like m�
with the

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etate the
of nature's

FOREWORD, 1970

Like many Americans I have been trying to come to terms
with the peculiar horrors of the Vietnam war and the violence,
chaos, and emotional perplexity these horrors have occasioned
-or reflected-in our own land. In me they once more open
up the intellectual wounds of World War II, which I had

sought to heal by writing this book a decade ago. At the close
of the present decade is there any reflection that might lessen
an iota the mounting confusion in my own and other minds?

At that time I felt, more than understood, that "something
is wrong, dreadfully wrong" with contemporary civilization.
This feeling was a consequence of the character of total war
in which terroristic bombing of cities and civilians became

xv



FOREWORD, 1970

for the first time the rule. The culmination was the destruc­
tion of Nagasaki and Hiroshima with the most abstract of all
death-dealing instruments.

In this book I tried to comprehend what the practice of
total war did to man as warrior. For the warrior who slays
an impersonal enemy has traditionally not been regarded as a
criminal, a murderer. Yet in the era of total war the distinc­
tion becomes ever more blurred. And the dissociation in our
lives between soldiering and civilian pursuits grows at the
very period when distinguishing between combatants and
noncombatants threatens to disappear altogether. As I now
see it, in the 1950s this was the source of my emotional con­
viction that something was dreadfully awry in the contempo­
rary world. Today few would dispute the fact that something
has gone wrong, though exactly what it is eludes us.

A few months ago I got some intellectual insight into what
is wrong by means of two unrelated experiences. At the
University of Hawaii I heard a Japanese philosopher speak
of "the monstrous character" of modern civilization. He was
referring to Japan's adoption of Western science and tech­
nology � which has resulted in one of the highest gross na­
tional products in the world. At the same time Japan has
become, according to him, the most godless nation of all,
with no real motivations other than impulses for material
goods and sex. His words were for me more impressive be­
cause I learned to know him, in a week's association, as no
Cassandra bemoaning the loss of religious faith and indulging
in reactionary nostalgia. Though a serious man, he was any­
thing but gloomy. His lecture and discussion centered on the
issue of whether men of the East or West can survive without
any god or gods. And his answer to explicit questions about
this was an unyielding No.

XVI

At

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oisea
to Lan'

martial
1�66, h

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called it
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-maybe

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ence of

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Abstr



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act of all

rire wi thou!
• tion about

FOREWORD, 1970

At the time I had just completed a review of Daniel Lang's
painful account of "the incident of Hill 192," the subject of
his Casualties of War, in which a veteran of Vietnam recounts
to Lang why he resolved to report and bring before a court­
martial the other members of his patrol, who in November,
1966, had abducted, raped, and then deliberately murdered
a Vietnamese girl. While pondering his motivation for not
participating in the crime and for undertaking the hazardous
task of bringing his comrades to trial for it, this simple ex­
soldier spoke the following to Lang:

We all figured we might be dead in the next minute, so what
difference did it make what we did? But the longer I was over there,
the more I became convinced that it was the other way around that
counted-that because we might not be around much longer, we
had to take extra care how we behaved. Anyway, that's what made
me believe I was interested in religion. Another man might have
called it something else, but the idea was simply that we had to
answer [or what we did. We had to answer to something, to someone
-maybe just to ourselves.

With their words the Japanese professor and the Vietnam
veteran brought something to a focus in me with which I had
long been contending. Are these manifestations of our mon­
strous age a consequence of the death of all gods? What
does it mean to attempt to live godlessly?

Answering the first question affirmatively, as my experi­
ence of the present decade prompts me to do, depends in
great part on my interpretation of the second. When I wrote
this book at the end of the last decade I already perceived
one aspect of godlessness, namely, that remoteness from
reality in warfare that I called abstraction .

Abstractness is illustrated once again in the furor oc-

xvii



FOREWORD, 1970

casioned by the Songmy massacre. To the usual judgment
this deed seems far more of an atrocity than the actions of

the pilots who bomb such hamlets from the sky or of the

artillery men who lob in shells from a great distance. The
reason given is that the infantrymen are brutalized by their
deeds. Yet brutalization is hardly the worst that can happen
to a man, for it can be healed in time and in circumstances

of peaceful living. But the man who kills from a distance and
without consciousness of the consequences of his deeds feels

no need to answer to anyone or to himself. His is an uncon­

scious depravity that can increase imperceptibly in civilian
life. Dissociated from his deeds he can become far more

monstrous than the infantry soldier or lower-echelon officer
who occasionally goes beserk under battle strain. The "ter­

rifyingly normal" men, who are ever in the vast majority,
are those who make our age a monstrous one.

Now I understand better than I did that such normal men

are everywhere. They need not be bombardiers or captains of
artillery. The atrocities and "incidents" of Vietnam are hardly
isolated occurrences and unrelated to the American or any
other tradition. Despite the assurances of Administration
officials to the contrary, reflection teaches a deeper truth, to
wit, that such deeds are more or less a product of modern
culture, which has increasingly grown godless.

What are the further implications of living godlessly? For
one thing it implies forgetfulness of the encompassing world
to which we are so totally bound, both as individuals and as a
species. No longer do we feel answerable to this encompassing
which is within us, as memory, imagination, and conscious­
ness, or without us as soil and sun and air and water. We
are forgetful of the fact that these latter are not simply
things of our environment but natural powers and fibres of

xviii

which
exister
aaverb
tivese1

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be "non

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our SCI

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species

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t can ha��en

FOREWORD, 1970

which we are made and which enable us to be sustained in
existence every moment. They are verbs, not nouns, and the
adverb "godlessly" qualifies these verbs, alas now in a nega­
tive sense.

Thoughtlessly we conceive nature as external environment.
Thinking, and presumably remembering, too, is supposed to
be "non-natural." But that which sustains us in being is surely
as much these nonmaterial activities of thinking, remember­
ing, creating as digesting, breathing, locomotion, and the
like. Possibly they are not so different in kind, as perhaps
our sciences will one day establish.

Such godless living means for another thing that our
species fancies itself to be the purpose and goal of creation­
perhaps not merely of our tiny earth but also of the incon­
ceivable range and extent of the cosmos now that we have
broken through earth's atmosphere. This suggests a forget­
fulness of the most obvious fact of our mortality, that we are
late-comers to creation and probably early departers. The
dissociation of man as individual and species from the
limitless backgrounds of his being is another quality which
constitutes the monstrous character of contemporary civili­
zation.

In curious ways conventional religionists illustrate such
godlessness as surely as avowed atheists, if not more so. Too
typically they abjure thinking man's backgrounds by clinging
to a man-centered universe and fashioning god in our image.
Putting emphasis on believing-which they equate with
faith-they distrust contemporary insights and become ata­
vistic in the worst sense. The god they seek is ever "the God
of our Fathers," never of our children's children. Their reli­
gion seems to be little more than superstition and consola­
tion. To them living godlessly would connote the denial of

xix



FOREWORD, 1970

the physical existence of the Judaic or Christian god, always
imagined as a Person and thought of in capital letters, some­
one to whom they pray when in dire straits or praise in good
times. To speak of gods, as the Japanese philosopher did,
would seem primitive to them, for everyone knows that
monotheism is "higher" than polytheism. Few consider

seriously that other world religions have their own god or
gods, much less do they take seriously the obvious fact that
the Jewish or Christian god is hardly the same god for
different believers. Nor would they understand any better the
simple, profound remark of the ex-soldier that "we had to
answer to something, to someone-maybe just to ourselves."

If man's attempt to live without gods appears, in the harsh
light of present realities, a failed attempt, is a reversal of our
course possible? Some perplexed thinkers are persuaded that
nothing can be done. They see our new technetronic culture
as a destiny that must be lived out to the end. According to
them, the problem of godlessness is not a moral crisis, not a
failure of man, rather it is a withdrawal of the divinities from
human view. Such withdrawal has been gradual, long in the
making over the last centuries, and coincidental with the
slow coming to dominance of man over external nature and
its exploitation by him. Mind sundered from its fount and
original habitat inevitably gives rise to subjectivistic ideolo­
gies in conflict with one another. These become the very
shape and substance of present reality. To believe that we can
change this fate through a moral reformation in any meaning­
ful sense is to abide in illusion. The powers of history are
superior to any willed determination of men, even of man.

I agree that moral reformation is hardly an appropriate
response to the withdrawal of the sense of divinities in human

xx

exisi
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FOREWORD, 1970

existence. Religion is not morality; it is both more and less
than morality. Yet I am unwilling to accept the conclusion
that nothing can be "done" to alter our fate. Though a pro­
found religious consciousness, of the sort I imply in this book,
is not something willed or within our powers, it may neverthe­
less come over us when our true situation becomes sufficiently
clear.

That is to say, the absent and hidden gods may reveal
themselves once again when we are prepared for their coming.
They are unlikely to come in the form of a revival of Judaism
or Christianity, much less in the shape of a "foreign" religion
like Zen Buddhism or others. They are likely to show them­
selves, if at all, in a new manner and form. Yet, as always in
profound changes, the new is in so many respects "the oldest
of the old." Such a recovery of religious faith would be a
kind of self-recovery of our society. Hence it would surely
be not without our doing though hardly within our control.

This way of thinking can scarcely help our nonplused
citizens to come to terms with atrocities in Vietnam, assassina­
tions of our public figures, and increasing violence on cam­
puses and in cities of America and Europe. It certainly will
not if we rest content with surface features and fail to give
thought to the disappearance of the limitless backgrounds of
human life. Only if we regain contact with the sources of our
being in that nature within and about us will we be able to
discover new road markers on the path ahead for the re­
mainder of this century. Only those who have bridged some
of the discontinuities in Western tradition will dare to think
the radical new thoughts that set up these road markers.

I am far from the claim that the reflections on men In
battle which compose this book are sufficiently profound to

xxi



FOREWORD, 1970

establish any markers. But I am confident that the struggle
to

comprehend my experience as a soldier in World War II pro­
vides a perspective on past and future that helps to

reduce

the discontinuities of the monstrous present.
J. GLENN GRAY

December, 1969

xxii

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ence u

mymi
May �
in the

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comml

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�trugg\e to
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to reduce

A NOTE TO THE READER

Since much of the material for this book is drawn from my experi­
ence in World War II, it is best to set down here a brief record of
my military service. I was inducted into the Army as a private on
May 8, 1941, having received my "greetings from the President"
in the same mail that brought word from Columbia University that
my doctorate in philosophy was conferred. On October 28, 1945, I
was honorably discharged as a second lieutenant, a battlefield
commission having been granted me in December 1944 at Strass­
burg, France. These four years of service covered nearly a year in
an armored division, over a year in Washington, D.C., as an agent
of the Counter Intelligence Corps, and not quite two years overseas
in the European Theater of Operations. At the end of 1943, I was
sent to Africa to join an infantry division en route to the Italian
front. As a member of the counter-intelligence unit I participated in
the Italian campaign, the invasion of southern France, and the cam­
paign in middle Europe until the end of the war, being, in the
process, attached successively to three infantry divisions. The re­
sponsibility of our unit was the safeguarding of troops against
spies and saboteurs which the enemy might send across the front
or leave behind among the civilian population.

The nature of our task demanded an unusual amount of freedom
snd mobility. Because we worked constantly with civilians in Italy,
France, and Germany, it was possible to observe the effects of war
on the native populations as well as on our own soldiers. An addi-

XXlll



J. GLENN GRAY

THE

tional year in educational reconstruction after the close of the war

gave me opportunity to observe postwar reactions in shattered

Europe.
The book was largely written during a recent year in Germany,

made possible for my family and me by generous fellowships from
the Fulbright Commission and the Ford Foundation. This year of
leisure afforded me a new chance for long talks about the war in
the perspective of a decade with Germans from all walks of life.

They ranged from General Hans Speidel, Rommel's former chief
of staff, to Hitler Youth recruits of the last days of the war; from

nonmilitary men and women, students, housewives, ministers, to
survivors of the July 20 revolt against Hitler. Despite the fact that
we had fought each other not long before, as individuals and
nations, it was possible to discuss the past with little rancor or
distrust, one of the most curious phenomena of human relations.

During this year, my reading in German war literature extended
from von Clausewitz to contemporary novels, memoirs, letters, and
personal accounts of World War II, much of it as yet unknown in
America. For several years I have studied widely, if unsystemati­
cally, comparable writings of our own tradition and of Britain,
France, and Russia. Though comparatively little of it is cited in
the following pages, I should not want to minimize the effect of
this reading in correcting and expanding my own experience of
warfare. It is only because the intention and the aim of my book
are so different that I was able to make little direct use of this
literature, but I am no less indebted to it as background.

For critical reading of the manuscript and for friendly encour­
agement, I wish to express my gratitude to Mrs. Lillian McCue,
Professor William Hochman, and Dr. Ellsworth Mason. Professors
Frank Krutzke and Lewis Pino have been wise counselors in the

practical matter of finding the proper publisher.

XXIV

Colorado College



Ie of the war
in s'natteroo

IT in Gennanr,
�l\owshlps hom
m, Thisyealij!
�out thewal�
a� walks 01 llit

THE WARRIORS

J. GzmGUI



ONE

Dear F

long, �
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inter
times}

long U
cMnge
many
come

no at

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Auden

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o/14�



ONE

REMEMBERING

WAR

AND

FORGETFULNESS

Dear Fred: It has been long since I wrote you. I don't know how
long, whether a week or three. The last weeks have been hard,
filled with many bitter, hateful things and only a few short happy
interludes. What a heritage the Nazis leave behind them! Some­
times I feel very old. What my eyes have seen! We have been a
long time in the line and the picture at times seems never to
change. Only the personalities are different. Joy and beauty have
many different faces but brutality and hatred have but few. I have
come to the extremity of knowing beyond all doubt that there is
no other way for me to survive this period except the hard Chris­
tian way of finding the finer points in my associates and loving
them for those characteristics. The bare cold, prophetic words 01
Auden,

We must love one another or die
have rung in my mind on several 01 these frigid, sleepless nights
01 late.

3



THE WARRIORS

Perhaps even you cannot participate enough in this life over
here to understand. You would have to see a fine, fine family
broken, people you had learned to love, destroyed because of petty
personal grudges. You would have to see people slapped and
beaten because they might possibly be telling a lie or because
certain sadistic impulses need to be satisfied. You would have to
see old men and women on the roads with a few pitiful belongings
in a driving rain, going they know not where, trying to find shelter
and a little food in a scorched-earth area. Oh, you would have to
see many things, Fred, to know why I should come to realize such
a primitive truth as that I have only one alternative to death and
that is to love, to care for people whom I, as a natural man, want
to strike down.

The time may not be far 00, if it is not already here, when
millions of people will not want to live. It has been prophesied
and the prophecy is a true one. Today I talked with a young at­
tractive woman with three children who told me she did not care
what happened to her. She wanted to die. There was no theatri­
cality about her at all. She was not suOering from any physical
illness and she was not hungry. Separation from her husband,
bombing, living in cellars, no future--all of it had become too
much for her. Always the same picture-immer das gleiche Bild.

But I find courage and strength from somewhere. I shall go on.
Plato wrote of the wise man caught in an evil time who refuses
to take part in the crimes of his fellow citizens and takes refuge
behind a wall until the storm is past. Plato understood. But I am
too deeply involved. Such a course is not possible for me any
longer. So I am driven to the Christian way out. It is hard, yet
there is great comfort in finding it. I sleep better now, and because
I give love I find it oftener. You will not like such writing as this,
yet I cannot write anything else at the moment. It is late and 1
am tired....

December 9,1944

After fourteen years it is a disquieting experience to read my
war journals and letters like this one. Sad and laughable and

stranJ
at we

feeline
what s

perilou
ea�i1y,
letters
occasio
whlch 1

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�� tro�

a�vanl
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Vosges
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ill sod
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slream

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�assin



s life over
�ne fami1r
tuse of peur
5lapped and
e or becaw!
vould have �
/ut be!on�n�,
to �nd snel�
\Could Mtl�
to reali:elu(!

.

e to dea�arJ

become �
; :Ieicbe �tla

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'b� jor mean)
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Remembering War and Forgetjulness

strange, so Plato described the behavior of the people in limbo
at the end of The Republic, and this best expresses my present
feelings. What had brought me to such a state of mind? And
what significance can remembering it have in our present
perilous world? The first question I can answer honestly, if not
easily, by means of memory aided by my journals and by
letters returned to me by a friend. The second has already
occasioned much pondering, hesitation, and doubt, the end of
which I cannot yet foresee .

This particular letter was written in Alsace, where fanatical
SS troops had finally halted our division after its precipitous
advance from the beaches of southern France. We had been
committed to the front lines well over a hundred days without
rest, and it is easy to recall how tired we were. The fierce
resistance at the borders of Germany made our days nasty
and dangerous. Almost worse were the recriminations and per­
secutions among the unfortunate Alsatians of those thought
to be pro-German. Shopkeepers were changing their signs as
well as their language from German to French after having
done the reverse in 1939; political opinions were not so easily
reversed in a vengeful atmosphere where nearly everyone was
suspect. Moreover, we had just come into this area from the
Vosges Mountains, from which the Germans withdrew only
after they had set fire to everything in order to deprive us of
all shelter in the menacing winter temperatures soon to come.
As a consequence, the roads were filled with refugees of all
ages and conditions. Loaded with what they could carry on
their backs, on bicycles, or on carts, men, women, and children
streamed to the rear.

It had not been very different in Italy, where my division
had participated the previous spring in a similar race from
Cassino to the Amo, a campaign 80 aptly described by

5



6

W8J
civil
theiI
roost

lana,
�arbl
�pect
ana
freshl
overl

ni�ht:
surfaj
saw 1

;�I
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many
nowe�
1riefl]
our 'I

THE WARRIORS

Churchill as "the fiery rake," except that this was a crueler
climate and the rain that beat upon the refugees seemed more

pitiless than in the south. There was another difference. Here
we frequently met huge covered wagons drawn by steers or
oxen and piled high with farm implements and cooking pots.
On top of the gear under the canvas tops perched women and
children while the men goaded the beasts in front and boys
led the cows at the rear. Somehow these peasants had per­
suaded the Germans to let them salvage a portion of their
possessions.

Inevitably, these conveyances reminded me of our American
pioneers in the nineteenth century. Nothing else was similar,
for, unlike pioneers, they had no destination. Their goal was
behind them and there was no light in their faces. With an
aching heart I reflected on this regression from pioneers to
refugees and wondered if some future historian might not find
these terms most characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. There was something patently symbolical about the
contrast, which I have not since been able to put from mind.

The enemy was cruel, it was clear, yet this did not trouble
me as deeply as did our own cruelty. Indeed, their brutality
made fighting the Germans much easier, whereas ours weak­
ened the will and confused the intellect. Though the scales
were not at all equal in this contest, I felt responsibility for
ours much more than for theirs. And the effect was cumula­
tive. It had begun before my division had even reached the
front in Italy at the beginning of 1944. Bivouacked some
thirty miles to the rear, I had watched hungry Italian women
and children standing in February rains, holding crude cans
with wire handles to collect leftover food from our mess. The
American soldiers were generous, and it was easy to notice
that more food than usual was left in the mess kits, to find its

our!

lor a



erence. Hen
b1 steers �
cooking po�

ed womenij�
hont and oo�

ts baa�,
�rtiQn 01 ��I

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"

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ilieirDru�
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responsiliili� !�
ect was CUD1�
ren reacneO�!
iVOU8ckea ��

Italian wom�

ing CTUae c�
our mess, rm

Remembering War and Forgetiulnes«

way into the eagerly extended cans of the thin and shivering
civilians. Rarely did they eat it on the spot, however tempted;
their dependents in the village nearby were evidently upper­
most in their thoughts. Inexperienced and fearful in a strange
land, higher headquarters soon put out stern orders that all
garbage was to be buried forthwith. Then began the hideous
spectacle of unwilling soldiers forced to push back the women
and children while garbage cans of food were dumped in
freshly dug pits. Other soldiers hastily shoveled the wet dirt
over the meat, bread, and vegetables. To prevent scavenging at
night, it became necessary to fetch dry earth and tramp the
surface of the "sump" until it was packed. More than once we
saw the despairing children and women break through the
lines and scrabble in the rain and mud to rescue dirty pieces
of food before the soldiers could seize them and push them
away. "And though it wrenches my heart to see them," I wrote
in my journal, "I soon grow accustomed to the sight and eat
my fill. How hard is the heart of man!"

Could it have been I who witnessed this scene and wrote
these words in this journal? My memory does not deceive me,
and, if it did, the pages are before me. It is true that most of
us did not want to behave in this way; in fact, the faces of
these green troops registered utter disgust with such senseless
orders. But we did not protest; we steeled ourselves, thinking,
no doubt, that much worse sights were in store.

It would be superfluous, as well as too painful, to recall
many of those worse sights. Because of its peculiar character,
however, one other episode haunts my mind and may be
briefly set down. It happened in southern France shortly after
our invasion. One day an attractive French girl appeared at
our temporary headquarters and confessed that she had worked
for a time with the local Gestapo and now feared the revenge

7



8

THE WARRIORS

of the Maquis. The French security officer with whom I was
working interrogated her calmly at some length and soon
found out that she had been in love with the Gestapo captain
in charge of this district and had been persuaded to aid him on
occasion in his repressive measures against the Resistance.
Since our unit had to move on almost at once, the French

officer wrote a report of his interrogation for the civil author­
ities of the liberated city-and closed it with his recommenda­
tion that the girl be shot! On the way to the city jail with the
girl, he picked up some pictures of his wife and children,
which he had had developed in a local photography shop
during our brief stay. After showing them to me for my com­
ment and approval, he carried them to the girl in the car
ahead. Ignorant of the fate he had decreed for her (and which
would almost certainly be carried out at once under conditions
at that time), the girl admired the family snapshots and the
two of them laughed and joked for many minutes. Passers-by
might easily have mistaken them for lovers.

There was little savagery or blood lust in this French officer.
He did not hate the girl, so far as I could tell, though he hated
her deeds. He would, in fact, have been quite willing to sleep
with her the night before ordering her execution. When I
remonstrated with him about such callousness, he made clear
to me that he regarded himself as an army officer in a quite
different way from himself as a human being. The two per­
sonalities could succeed each other with lightning rapidity,
as I was to see on numerous occasions. As a human being, he
was capable of kindness, even gentleness, and within limits
he was just and honest. In his capacity of functionary, he
could be brutal beyond measure without ever losing his out­
ward amiability and poise. I observed precisely the same

qu
wh

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losing his o�

ely the samI

Remembering War and Forgetiulnes«

qualities in the Fascist and Nazi politicians and police with
whom it was my fate to deal.

After months of this sort of experience, I began to detect
with a kind of horror that I was becoming inured to cruelty
and not above practicing it myself on occasion. In the spring
of 1945 I find entries like the following in my journal:

... And as Spring comes and the days lengthen, and sunshine
and warmth penetrate, one becomes aware what toll the winter has
taken. Last Spring I saw in Italy the lush red fields of poppies,
the death flower, and knew that mines lay beneath them. This
Spring there are only the mines. So it is with our lives. The
camouflage, beautiful if treacherous, is falling away and we are
left with the ugly deadly surface. I grow bitter and sarcastic.
Today I yelled at a character who had lied to me and took a
certain pleasure in seeing the perspiration come to his face and
his hands tremble. He knew the power I had over him. So do one's
values become corrupted and conscience coarsened by this ordeal.
But enough of this . . .

And a few months later, in a letter to my friend, I wrote:

One becomes incredibly hardened. Now I often despair of my­
self. I interrogate these "bastards," as we call them, sneeringly,
insultingly, and sometimes take cold delight in their cringing. I
have declared that if ever I find one who will say: "I am, I was,
and will remain a National Socialist and you can like it or not,"
I will clasp his hand and cry: "At last I have found a brave and
honest, if an evil, man. We don't want to arrest such a one as you."
But I think I shall not find such a man. They are all as disgusting
as the Fascists in Italy--all arrant cowards who say they were
forced to do what they did, even if it was to enter the Party in
1928. From high to low--and I have had some big shots-the
story is the same. I am tempted to think that the key to the whole
rotten mess is lack of courage and fear. Cowards best understand
the psychology of fear. That sentence explains much to me. Few

9



10

THE WARRIORS

of them have the courage to take their own lives, though the
fellows in the Detachment accuse me of losing my cases or solving
them by this route. I do not like such jokes, but on the other hand
I have not had a bad conscience about those who have "cheated"
me by that route. Oh, it is all a dirty, lousy business and I some­
times ask God why I have to be chosen for this particular work.

Now I realize how tenuous were the links to my friends
and to my journal, which kept me integral and not too deeply
stained by the monstrous cruelty of war. Becoming a func­
tionary is not entirely foreign to the nature of the majority
of us.

However overwhelmed by brutality and suffering I became
at times, they represent, after all, only one aspect of war. It
would be false to dwell solely on them and ignore other
features of war experience that are equally important. There
was also the intense nervous excitement of great moments, in
which even the dullest of us were conscious of participating in
historical events of overawing importance. Thousands of vet­
erans must remember our entry into Rome in June 1944, after
the dreary, lethal, and endless winter on the Anzio beachhead
or the Cassino front. Suddenly and as if by magic we were in a
beautiful city, full of sunshine and of excited people intent on
showering us with favors. In place of the sad and dumpy
creatures we had supposed all Italians were, here were fresh­
faced, bare-legged, wonderful girls, hungry for men, who
seemed to regard us when we first entered the city as akin to
demigods. There was something primitive and archaic about
the emotions that swept over all of us on that first glorious day
in Rome. The Eternal City was welcoming another conqueror,
and, as we were hugged and embraced for hours by the ex-

as

WI

ew

en



r conqueror,

I by the
ex·

Remembering.".ar and Forget/ulne$I
uberant populace, I felt like one of the soldiers who took the
city thousands of years before.

And the capture of Rome was nothing more than the most
massive of these welcomings. In France it happened in many
a town and city that we felt like conquering heroes, that
delicious, boyish sense of triumph and elation, ridiculous but
irresistible. In my journal I find a brief account of one such
occasion, which could stand for many.

My heart is full tonight. We are at Vienne, near Lyons, and
were the first Americans in the town. Our reception was un­
equaled, even by Rome. Everybody was out on the streets, even
though it was raining, and we were kissed and showered with
flowers for hours. We took the flowers to the grave of the un­
known soldier after awhile and then we were really mobbed.
Surely no emperor has ever received more sincere and enthusi­
astic welcome than we. They took us to the famous Point res­
taurant, and we ate as I have never eaten before in Europe or
elsewhere. Then to hotel rooms where each has a room to him­

self and wonderful beds. Tonight the others have gone on, and 1
got the owner of the hotel to show me the churches and the town.
My first pure Gothic cathedral, 11th century, a refreshment to the
spirit like nothing else; then a view of the town from the heights,
beautiful under the evening sky, with its red roofs, its Roman
remains on adjacent hills. Then later I arranged a coffee-drinking
party with the lady in charge of the hotel-an Italian by birth.
We had fifteen or twenty men and women there and how they
enjoyed the coffee and cigarettes! We are almost like gods to these
people. I laugh at myself but I get excited too.

How characteristic that last line is of many moods in those

days. One laughed joyously and felt a bit sheepish at the same
time. At some level we knew that we were far from being what
these people thought us, but it was unbelievably pleasant,
nevertheless. It was compensation for the opposite situation

11



THE WARRIORS

and mood, which were our usual lot, for everyone knows that
war can be the most excruciatingly boring of all human activ­
ities. The alternation of dullness and excitement in their ex­

treme degrees separates war from peace sharply and promotes
the discontinuity in our memories. War compresses the great­
est opposites into the smallest space and the shortest time.
Not only do boredom and throbbing excitement succeed

each other rapidly, but other emotions as well. In a town near
Vienne the people divided their attention between cheering
us and persecuting collaborators who were being rounded up
by the Resistance youth. In the delirium of liberation, many
individuals were constantly going from a group that was hug­
ging and kissing returned FFI comrades to join another that
was torturing isolated collaborators. We could observe love
and hatred, tenderness and brutality, succeed each other in
many a person within moments. Excitement was at fever

pitch. German soldiers with hands high in the air were being
marched to a prisoner collection point by triumphant boys.
With a sense of horror, a comrade and I walking the streets
watched a group beating a girl whose hair had been crudely
sheared off and her face bloodied and bruised. She was crying
bitterly as her tormentors kicked her along, taunting and jeer­
ing and hooting; evidently she had been the mistress of some
German and possibly had spied on the local Resistance. A
little further on we saw a man, with his face cut, running like
a hurt and frightened beast before men who were doing worse
things to him than were happening to the girl. It was clear
that he had no chance of remaining alive if and when his
pursuers cornered him.

Suddenly from a group perhaps twenty yards ahead of us a
girl detached herself and ran directly toward me. Slim and
fleet as a deer, she was in my startled arms before I knew

12

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Remembering War and Forgetfulness
what was happening. A hug, a quick kiss on the mouth, and
she spun away with flaming cheeks into another crowd in
scarcely the time it takes to draw a breath. Everybody laughed
happily and applauded, while I picked up my fallen cap and
tried to conceal my red face and inner confusion. The act was

purely spontaneous; doubtless, in her excitement she hardly
knew what she was doing. Nothing could be more typical of
the confused emotions of war than that town in the first few
hours of freedom from German occupation.

There were other kinds of excitement, not so gleeful, in
which the nervous tension was, if possible, even greater. Per­
haps no soldier could describe adequately his feelings on a
D-day landing under fire. Moods of fear, anticipation, helpless­
ness, praying and cursing, adventure and longing succeed each
other like lightning. Though the landing in southern France
was a comparatively easy one, its details emerge clearly when I
choose to remember them. I crouched under my jeep on a
landing craft that went in a few hours after the first waves of
infantry. Shells were exploding in the water all around, and I
felt sure the next one would land squarely on us. It was silly
to expect the jeep to afford any protection against the German
88s, but I could not get up. Then through the tangle of gear
and machines I saw an American officer, a captain, standing
by the edge of our boat. He was smoking a cigarette, and I
watched fascinated as he flicked the ashes into the water. His
hand trembled not at all; he might have been on the Staten
Island ferry. Then I felt unreasonably grateful to him .. It was
clear that he was exposing himself no more nor less than I;
but his reason was in control. I longed to creep through the
gear, clasp him around the knees, and look up to him worship­
fully. Yet the ridiculousness of such an action did not chain
me so much as the fancied danger of moving from my spot.

13



14

hL
to

pel
roo

ofl

THE WARRIORS

Nevertheless, the sight of him gradually calmed me, so that
when our craft reached the shore I was able to get into my
jeep and drive it hurriedly through the surf and up onto dry
land.

In a grove a few hundred yards inland, we had to stop and
peel the protective putty from our motors, which had kept
them from drowning out in the shallow water. Again the shells
began to discover our location and to get close. Finally one
plopped among us, and as I threw myself down I waited for
the fragments to dig into my flesh. All that hit me was dirt and
little stones thrown up by the shell. But it scared me unreason­
ably; the next one, I was sure, would be the end for me. I had
no cover, so I got up and ran for the nearest protection I
could find, which was very inadequate. There I discovered
other soldiers as near to Mother Nature as they could get. I
followed their example and began digging a slit trench among
the rocks with my fingernails. The next explosion was farther
off, and we began to breathe easier. After a while we went
hack, and discovered that the jeep next to mine had huge
holes through the engine. Other nearby vehicles were in similar
condition.

Such external descriptions give little idea of the racing
excitement that underlies the occasion. And landings are only
an outstanding instance. Anyone who has lived through an air
raid of any magnitude at all knew a quality of excitement
scarcely experienced before or since. Fear may have been the
dominant feature of such excitement; rarely was it the only
ingredient. In such an emotional situation there is often a surge
of vitality and a glimpse of potentialities, of what we really are
or have been or might become, as fleeting as it is genuine. In
these situations some are able to serve others in simple yet
fundamental ways. Inhuman cruelty can give way to super-

or,

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ilia
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ay to suW

Remembering War and Forgetiulnes«
human kindness. Inhibitions vanish, and people are reduced
to their essence. If afterward they seem quickly to forget,
perhaps the memory is not wholly lost. Again and again in
moments of this kind I was as much inspired by the nobility
of some of my fellows as appalled by the animality of others,
or, more exactly, by both qualities in the same person. The
average degree, which we commonly know in peacetime, con­
ceals as much as it reveals about the human creature.

Then there was the strange. I think every soldier must have
felt at times that this or that happening fitted into nothing
that had gone before; it was incomprehensible, either absurd
or mysterious or both. If many events of this sort came to us,
we began to feel foreign to our own skins, intruders in the
world. More often than at home, we would wake up in the
night and wonder where we were. And, our senses fully re­
covered in a few seconds, we might begin to ponder what it
meant to be where we were. I suppose this feeling of strange­
ness came over us so often because of our comrades. Since

they were not chosen and usually had no prewar connection
with each other or each other's home towns, however dear

they had become in military life, they represented discon­
tinuity with all but the present and the immediate past.

I confess that a large number of Americans I met in the
Army amazed me by their differentness. I had not known their
like before, nor have I met them since. Nothing else could
have made me realize how narrow the circle in which we move
in peacetime is. Most of us hardly get an inkling of how
ninety per cent of our fellows live or think. Naively we assume
that they must be like us or not very different.

Whatever the cause, I was surely not alone in being under
the spell of the strange. Sometimes I moved through days and

15



16

THE WARRIORS

weeks trying to reach the familiar, the accustomed, and the
intimate. Through the study of Hegel in college and graduate
school, I had adopted the life goal of becoming at home in the
world. Now it became remote to the vanishing point, for I
could not banish the alien character of much of my experience.
Again my journal bears witness to the recurring nature of this
dominant mood.

November 6, 1944. A curious incident occurred today, which,
like the Lorelei tale, will not leave my mind. This morning two
FFI [French Forces of the Interior] boys who are working for
us came in with a story of having seen a suspicious soldier in the
forest who had German weapons and who spoke only French or
perhaps German. He was by himself and collected rations which
were strewn about the woods. They thought he was possibly a
German who had got into American uniform and was hiding out.
I decided to go with them this afternoon to investigate.

It was a rainy, dark day. We drove the jeep through a forest
trail that had evidently been the scene of a bitter battle. Trees were
razed; once we had to remove one from the trail. I was nervous
about mines, since the road showed little trace of American ve­
hicular traffic, though the boys kept assuring me that it had been
traversed. FinaUy we could go no farther by jeep and had to pro­
ceed by foot. The woods were rain-soaked and dripping and the
ground was soggy underfoot. The stillness was impressive and
somehow threatening. No sign of life was visible and the evidence
of recent battle was everywhere. Deep and elaborate foxholes
lined the trail, around which were strewn all manner of equip­
ment, German and American: ammunition, helmets, clothing, let­
ters from home, everything. We finally came upon the body of a
German soldier, missed by the collection unit. He was lying in the
distorted position common to all who are killed in action. Some­
one had pulled his coat over his head, and when one of us raised
it we saw that he had been shot in the head and was already de­
composing. His diary and other papers were lying near, but 1
did not read them. He seemed to fit in with this dark scene and

co

co

�

an



experienc�.
ature of t�

today, VJnk�,
morning Iw�

e lCorking f�r
J 50UieriniM

I y Frenc� or
hOnJ VJnk�

as po!siolr �
GJ hiding ow.
1ie.

Amer�anvl'
titMdoun

00 Md w �r�
'pping and �

pressive aM
theevidencl

ate /OXM�
r 0/ e�ui�

clothing, k�
he oody o/a

lying intM
lion. Some·

0/ us ra�ea
already �.

near, oat 1

scene and

Remembering War and Forgetfulness
dark day. I noticed as we continued our tramp that I felt a little
sick in my stomach. The macabre aspect of this adventure was
like something out of Edgar Allan Poe. Next we came upon a
peasant couple digging busily at the remains of an entrenchment,
obviously on the search for whatever of value they could find.
They looked up a little guiltily when we bore down on them and
responded hastily to the question of one of the FFI that they had
seen no one.

We continued on our way and at last arrived at a little depres­
sion in the woods, formed like a basin. On its floor there was con­
structed a rude hut from a foxhole, about three feet high and
covered over with all manner of materials from logs to uniforms.
This was apparently our quarry, for the boys silently deployed
around it, guns at the ready. I had forgotten mine, so merely
stood by. One of them called out: Hande hoch! Almost at once
there emerged a head from the single opening, and then a tall,
unshaven, and unkempt soldier crawled out and stood up. He was
in American uniform, and after a moment's hesitation, I asked:
"Are you an American?" He answered: "Yes." Then I knew that

he was a deserter. I jumped down into the basin and approached
him. It was evident that his nerves were bad because he was near

to crying.
He had been there about a week and had made himself fairly

comfortable. Inside the hut he had a fire going and htld just
cooked a meal. At first he lied to me a little about his unit, but
when he saw that I was disposed to be kind, he told me all. He
had been overseas more than two years and had fought with the
--th in Africa, Sicily, and Italy, then got transferred to the
-- for France.

"All the men I knew and trained with have been killed or trans­

ferred," he said with a quaver in his voice. "I'm lonely. They
promised me I would be relieved and rotated, but nothing ever
happens. I can't stand the infantry any longer. Why won't they
transfer me to some other outfit? The shells seem to come closer
all the time and I can't stand them." He shivered. I let him tal"

and tried to be as sympathetic as I could. I felt terribly sorry for

17



THE WARRIORS

him. He was from Pennsylvania, not a bright lad but very literate.
He begged me to let him stay there for a few more days, after
which he promised to rejoin his unit voluntarily. "I'm used to
living out in the woods," he said. "At home] always camped out
a lot." But he did not argue much when] explained that] could
not do it and that a few days later would not help him much. "I'm
glad you took me in and not the Military Police," he said and
offered me his German P-38 pistol, evidently a prized possession.
"The MPs will take it away from me and I'd rather you had it."
] protested but finally suggested that he should give it to me and
] would send it to his home after the uiar, l took down his mother's
address and shall return it to him someday. He was grateful, par­
ticularly when I made the FF] give him his German field glasses,
which he thought the MPs would allow him to keep.

We started the long walk back through the dripping woods,
after the FFI boys had gathered up the rations, blankets, and other
equipment. The deserter was certain that they had reported him
in order to get his rations because they had been there before and
tried to take them. He said they were aware that he was an Ameri..
can. After a while ] strongly suspected that he was right. ] let
them lug the food and keep it but I took the blankets and equip ..
ment to the Prisoner of War Cage and turned him and his belong..
ings over to the Military Police. They appeared to receive him
matter-of-factly and] suspect that he will not be punished but
simply put back into the line again, as he bitterly predicted.

To ask the question Ernst Junger asks in his war diary 0/
1940: Why was I brought before this scene? There may be a
good reason. Despite the seeming arbitrariness of everything, I
still believe that our lives are directed. When I cease to believe
that I shall be ready for death.

gro
all
hen
sma

As
stra

mel

tion

tery
was

nell

�ooj
D

the
on

lane

ne�
Dec

Strangest of all to me, and from present perspective most
significant, was an encounter in Italy a few weeks after we
were committed to the front lines. In a free hour one day I
climbed one of the nearby hills of the Apennines and got off
by myself in the late afternoon SUD. Passing through olive

wa

ani

wl
on

th

18



ry literate,
days, after
'm used to
camped oul
that I coulJ
much. "I'm

he said ana
d pos$ess�n,
you Md il."
it to me ana
h�mot�r'l
rOleM,�r'

�UgIruJ�,

ip�ng wooa!,
:ets, and OlMr

eporled nim
ieoeforeaM

. ()JonAmen',
n rignt.! ul

� and e���
!d his oelon�'

eceive n�

pun��d ow
edlcled,

lJ.ar diarr 0/
re mar De a

et'ery�in�, !
e 10 oeUeve

ctive mOlt

after Wf

one dar I

�d got o�
iugh olivf

Remembering War and Forgetfulne&&

groves, I soon got away from the evidences of war and gradu­
ally came near the top of the ridge. There I came upon an old
hermit, who was sitting upon the grass of a cleared space,
smoking a battered old pipe while his donkey grazed nearby.
A sod hut into which I peered contained only a clean pallet of
straw and a few simple cooking utensils. The old man greeted
me amiably, and we fell into conversation, though communica­
tion was not easy owing to his dialect and my imperfect mas­
tery of Italian, which was drawn largely from grammars. He
was smoking dried grass, and his grizzled features took on a
delighted smile when on my invitation he replaced this with
good American tobacco.

Down in the valley the evening cannonade began, and in
the distance we could see where the shells from both sides

originated and, a few seconds later, where some of them
landed with huge dust clouds and explosions. The hermit
began to gesticulate and to question me, and it gradually
became clear to me that he was mystified by all this and
wanted an explanation of what was going on. Could it be,
I asked myself, that he does not know about the war? And
there flashed into my mind a remark of Tolstoi's in War and
Peace to the effect that many Russian peasants who suffered
loss of everything in Napoleon's invasion of Russia had not
the faintest idea from first to last who was making war or what
the campaigns were about. That, however, was in a novel.
Here, more than a century later, I had stumbled on a man who
was totally detached from what was absorbing my whole life
and the lives of millions like me.

Perplexed, I tried to explain simply in my halting Italian
what World War II was all about. Then it gradually dawned
on me how impossible my task really was and would be even
though I spoke a perfect dialect Italian. How could one ex-

19



20

THE WARRIORS

plain to this illiterate old man why Americans and British and
Germans, with some of his countrymen on both sides, were
fighting in Italy? Did I myself know in other than a super­
ficial sense? The strangeness of the conflict and my part in it
made me shiver. Why were we fighting individuals whom we
had never seen and who had never seen us, soldiers who were

probably as miserable and ignorant as we? What was I doing
here? How did this mad war concern me? For a few minutes
I could observe this spectacle through the puzzled eyes of the
old hermit, long enough to realize that I understood it as
little as he.

It is hard to put into words the conflicting ideas that raced
through my mind as I said good-by to the innocent old man
and started down the ridge. I felt keenly what the philosopher
Karl Jaspers calls the bottomlessness of the world. The pro­
fessors who had taught me philosophy and for whom I had had
great respect and esteem became all at once puny in my
imagination. I pictured them at this moment sitting around
their radios at home listening for news of what we were doing
here and understanding it as little as the hermit and I. Even
the great thinkers of Western civilization seemed suddenly to
lose their stature and become only human beings, unable to
help me fathom what millions of Europeans and Asians were
undergoing at this moment. Their wisdom was almost gro­
tesquely inadequate for the occasion. I knew then that I could
rely no longer on them for help; there was no one but myself.

If there was a dominant mood in my whirling thoughts, it
was one of exposure, resulting from my loss of hold on tradi­
tion and the protection of nature now tom by conflict. I was
amazed at my former simple-mindedness and glad, despite
everything, to be finally aware of it. There was a rare element
of liberation about this experience of strangeness, not present

in
inv
be.
a I

imp
fron
in I

fro�
wa�

pro
thil
nOI

im]
int
an

Pe
ac

th

sel
ou

es

b�
us



8ritish ana
sides, were

e but mr��'
iliougn�, il

old on tram,
nilict. I W�

ad, despit�
e element

ot present

Remembering War and Forgetfulness

in the others. I realized my powerlessness to escape further
involvement in the war, mad and meaningless though it might
be. But by the time I had reached my quarters, I had achieved
a degree of detachment, through heightened self-awareness,
impossible to those unfortunate men who gained no respite
from battle. I was not again to enter the conflict as a victim
in quite the same way as before. Inwardly I was shielded
from the danger of false hopes and faith in the outcome of the
war, to some extent, also, from false loves and hates.

In some sense I had come to myself, as is reported of the
prodigal son, and this meant that some simple and familiar
things were seen for the first time in a proper light. In our
normal state we seem to be remote from the plainest and most
important truths. "It is quite in keeping with man's curious
intellectual history," writes Norman Angell, "that the simplest
and most important questions are those he asks least often."
Perhaps the reason is that the required naivete is not easy to
acquire or retain. The insights of one hour are blotted out by
the events of the next, and few of us can hold on to our real

selves long enough to discover the momentous truths about
ourselves and this whirling earth to which we cling. This is
especially true of men at war. The great god Mars tries to
blind us when we enter his realm, and when we leave he gives
us a generous cup of the waters of Lethe to drink.

Though I did not forget my encounter with the hermit, the
necessities of action took hold of me once more. When the war

finally ended for me, in the heart of Germany sixteen crowded
months later, the cruel, the momentous, and the strange were
blended as never before. Emotionally I had grown numb, so I
thought, but to my surprise I discovered on V-E Day that I
could not keep tears from my eyes. Most of all, I was pained

21



THE WARRIORS

at the thought of those who had lost their lives in the last few
days of fighting. How could I ever make sense of the tragedy
of those, in concentration camp and front line, who had longed
for this day through the years only to perish a few hours or
days before its dawn? Why had I heen spared? To these
questions no answer came.

The next months were a severe struggle with restlessness, a
nearly universal disease of that period and not at all confined
to veteran soldiers. At times I wanted to transfer to UNRRA
and help rebuild the shattered countries I had done my bit
to tear down. At other times I wanted to escape the charnel
house of Europe and seek to find myself in the profession I
had prepared for in years that now appeared incredibly re­
mote. When a job offer unexpectedly came from an American
college president, I did not know whether I was glad or sorry.
It set me dreaming of teaching sober, interested students,
working out with them some of the tormenting problems of life
and thought. But could I endure big, blustering, unrepentant
America? I speculated in my journal on what I would answer
if the college president were to ask me what my philosophic
position was, and decided I would answer that I was a broken­
hearted idealist, realizing that, while such an answer would not
stand for much in formal philosophy, it had a significance for
me that he could scarcely fathom.

However, the passage of time puts a new face on everything.
I soon got out of the Army and gradually I got used to peace­
time ways again. It seems scarcely credible to me now that for
a period I felt curiously undressed without a pistol on my hip,
and I trod softly for a while on all loose sod, unconsciously
fearing booby traps, those devilish antipersonnel mines de­
signed to kill or castrate the unwary soldier who stepped on
one. When a new generation of college students replaced the

22

vet

out

than
y

hoW
elth�
thel
ilie

In�t
war

�eri

J
littl
war

legi
the
abl



e last few
e tragedy
ad longed

w hours or
? To these

stlessness, !
aU confin�

t to UNRij
done mr 111

ilie charn�1

Remembering War and Forgetjulness

veterans with whom I could philosophize meaningfully with­
out mentioning our common past, the war receded even faster
than before. Now it is almost as though it never took place.

Yet something is wrong, dreadfully wrong. When I consider
how easily we forget the millions who suffered unbearably,
either permanently maimed in body or mind, or who gave up
their lives before they had realized their purposes, I rebel at
the whole insane spectacle of human existence. Had I been
one of them, how little difference it would make to anyone
today. Are we, the survivors, changed at all in significant
ways as a consequence of World War II? Am I? And if so,
how?

Answering for myself only, I must say: Not nearly enough.
Despite the mood of my letter from Alsace, I have not
adopted the Christian injunction or heeded Auden's warning.
Instead, I have yielded to an old temptation. So often in the
war I felt an utter dissociation from what had gone before in

my life; since then I have experienced an absence of con­
tinuity between those years and what I have become. As a
teacher of philosophy and would-be philosopher, I strive to
see at least my own life as a whole and to discover some pur­

pose and direction in at least the major parts. Yet the effort to
assimilate those intense war memories to the rest of my ex­

perience is difficult and even frightening. Why attempt it?
Why not continue to forget?

It is a real temptation, urged upon us by many. There is a
popular belief that the men who knew war at firsthand talk
little or not at all about it. Those who do are suspected of
wanting to magnify their little egos, of being professional
legionnaires. Besides, people are tired of war; one can hear
the refrain in a thousand living rooms. They want to read
about it as fiction, and so transmute war into art, or have it as

23



THE WARRIORS

history, in memoirs of generals and statesmen. These, admir­
able as the good ones are, do not make heavy demands on us to
assimilate, to bridge the abyss between peace and war. They
rarely ask why and to what purpose, and are strangely incuri­
ous concerning the psychological and moral interrelations of
man as warrior and as civilian.

I am afraid to forget. I fear that we human creatures do not
forget cleanly, as the animals presumably do. What protrudes
and does not fit in our pasts rises to haunt us and make us

spiritually unwell in the present. The discontinuities in con­
temporary life are cutting us off from our roots and threaten­
ing us with the dread evil of nihilism in the twentieth century.
We may become refugees in an inner sense unless we remem­
ber to some purpose. Surely the menace of new and more
frightful wars is not entirely unrelated to our failure to under­
stand those recently fought. If we could gain only a modicum
of greater wisdom concerning what manner of men we are,
what effect might it not have on future events?

It is exceedingly unlikely that I shall ever be able to under­
stand the why and wherefore of war. But sufficient reflection
through the mirror of memory may enable me to make sense
of my own small career. The deepest fear of my war years, one
still with me, is that these happenings had no real purpose.
Just as chance often appeared to rule my course then, so the
more ordered paths of peace might well signify nothing or
nothing much. This conclusion I am unwilling to accept with­
out a struggle; indeed, I cannot accept it at all except as a
counsel of despair. How often I wrote in my war journals
that unless that day had some positive significance for my
future life, it could not possibly be worth the pain it cost.

lied
�rim
Mart

knt'l
worst

�Y�
�al�
inea,
nut (
nevel

"Per
soldi



e, admir.
TWO

THE

ENDURING

APPEALS

OF BATTLE

I feel cheerful and am well-pleased.... What is ahead mar be
grim and dreadful but I shall be spiritually more at rest in the
heart of the carnage than somewhere in the rear. Since I have
lent myself to the war, I want to pay the price and know it at its
worst. (War journal, January 31, 1944)

My friend wrote once late in the war that he often thought
of me as the soldier. To him I had come to stand for the

qualities that he associated with universal man at war. The
idea, I recall, both Battered and insulted me a little at first
but ended by impressing me with its truth, though I should
never have conceived it on my own. I wrote in my journal:
"Perhaps the worst that can be said is that I am becoming a
soldier. To be a soldier! That is at best to be something less

25



26

weB

of d

peol
Han!
accic

In

cirill'1001
They
Iney
But tilnass
liveollon�e
wneln
ana 0

THE WARRIORS

than a man. To say nothing of being a philosopher." Since
then I have frequently wondered what it meant to be a
"soldier" and why I regarded myself then, insofar as I was a
soldier, as less than a man.

At the time I wrote these lines I faced the grim realization
of how narrowed all our desires had become. The night before,
one of the women in the town where we were staying had
declared: "Das Essen ist die Hauptsache." Food is the main
thing. And the words had burned into my brain with the force
of a proverb. The majority of my fellows seemed content with
the satisfaction of their natural urges--eating, drinking, and
lusting for women. Interests and refinements that transcended
these primitive needs, and that I had built up over the years,
were rapidly falling away, and I felt that I was becoming
simply one of the others.

In a German newspaper, taken from a prisoner, I read a
letter from a soldier long years on the Russian front, who
lamented that the war had robbed him of any sense of self­

identity and that he no longer possessed an ego and a personal
fate. I realize now, much better than I did then, that there was
another force much more determining than simple need and
desire. It was the emotional environment of warfare, more
specifically, the atmosphere of violence. The threat to life and
safety that the presence of the opponent, "the enemy," repre­
sented created this climate of feeling. Near the front it was
impossible to ignore, consciously or unconsciously, the stark
fact that out there were men who would gladly kill you, if and
when they got the chance. As a consequence, an individual was
dependent on others, on people who could not formerly have
entered the periphery of his consciousness. For them in turn,
he was of interest only as a center of force, a wielder of

wean

renae!1m
Tnl

wnat

!�S�
more

lome
�ea

�ener
!iaere

OD,as

rel,f
lonn'



er," Sinc�
t to be I
as I was I

realhati��
nightbeloll,

stayin� nl�
dis ilie film
'IIiili ilieloru

oner, I reao!

ian front, wn�
I sense of &�,
I

ana a �er!On�
,lnat tnerew�

,

�Ie ne� an�

fnemr," re�r�
e front it w�

sly, ilie starI
'j] you, if ana

djridu8lw�
ormerly n8vt

The Enduring Appeal& oj Battle

weapons, a means of security and survival. This confraternity
of danger and exposure is unequaled in forging links among
people of unlike desire and temperament, links that are util­
itarian and narrow hut no less passionate hecause of their
accidental and general character.

In such a climate men may hold fast in memory to their
civilian existence of yesterday and stubhornly resist, as I tried
to do, the encroachments of the violent and the irrational.
They may write home to their parents and sweethearts that
they are unchanged, and they may even he convinced of it.
But the soldier who has yielded himself to the fortunes of war,
has sought to kill and to escape heing killed, or who has even
lived long enough in the disordered landscape of hattIe, is no
longer what he was. He hecomes in some sense a fighter,
whether he wills it or not-at least most men do. His moods
and disposition are affected by the presence of others and the
encompassing environment of threat and fear. He must sur­
render in a measure to the will of others and to superior force.
In a real sense he becomes a fighting man, a Homo [urens,

This is surely part of what it means to be a soldier, and
what it has always meant. Homo [urens is, so to speak, a
subspecies of the genus Homo sapiens. Obviously, man is
more than a fighter and other than a fighter, in our age and
formerly. In some generations-alas! too few as yet-organ­
ized war has been little more than an episode. Even those
generations who have had to spend much time in combat con­
sidered themselves farmers, teachers, factory workers, and so
on, as well as fighters. Man as warrior is only partly a man,
yet, fatefully enough, this aspect of him is capable of trans­
forming the whole. When given free play, it is able to sub­
ordinate other aspects of the personality, repress civilian

27



THE WARRIORS

habits of mind, and make the soldier as fighter a different
kind of creature from the former worker, fanner, or clerk.

pen
Millions of men in our day-like millions before us--have !na�

learned to live in war's strange element and have discovered foun
in it a powerful fascination. The emotional environment of �
warfare has always been compelling; it has drawn most men und
under its spell. Reflection and calm reasoning are alien to it. lust
I wrote in my war journal that I was obsessed with "the con
tyranny of the present"; the past and the future did not con- �rim
cern me. It was hard for me to think, to be alone. When the som
signs of peace were visible, I wrote, in some regret: "The in m
purgative force of danger which makes men coarser but nas
perhaps more human will soon be lost and the first months of on tI
peace will make some of us yearn for the old days of conflict." wno

Beyond doubt there are many who simply endure war, �eeil
hating every moment. Though they may enjoy garrison life or nein!
military maneuvers, they experience nothing but distaste and requl
horror for combat itself. Still, those who complain the most satia
may not be immune from war's appeals. Soldiers complain as n
an inherited right and traditional duty, and few wish to admit imp
to a taste for war . Yet many men both hate and love combat. para
They know why they hate it; it is harder to know and to be men
articulate about why they love it. The novice may be eager at confl
times to describe his emotions in combat, but it is the battle- appeihardened veterans to whom battle has offered the deeper monl
appeals. For some of them the war years are what Dixon unadl
Wecter has well called "the one great lyric passage in their tnat I
lives. " They

What are these secret attractions of war, the ones that have notOI
persisted in the West despite revolutionary changes in the offe�
methods of warfare? I believe that they are: the delight in opp�

28



a difierenl
I or clerk

.ore U�hall
�ve discover�
nviromnent �I

y endure WM

y garrison ll!��
out d�taste�!

mplain tne m�
.

rs cOm�I�ID!
. wisn to �Gml

The Enduring Appeals 0/ Battle

seeing, the delight in comradeship, the delight in destruction.
Some fighters know one appeal and not the others, some ex­
perience all three, and some may, of course, feel other appeals
that I do not know. These three had reality for me, and I have
found them also throughout the literature of war.

War as a spectacle, as something to see, ought never to be
underestimated. There is in all of us what the Bible calls "the
lust of the eye," a phrase at once precise and of the widest
connotation. It is precise because human beings possess as a
primitive urge this love of watching. We fear we will miss
something worth seeing. This passion to see surely precedes
in most of us the urge to participate in or to aid. Anyone who
has watched people crowding around the scene of an accident
on the highway realizes that the lust of the eye is real. Anyone
who has watched the faces of people at a fire knows it is real.
Seeing sometimes absorbs us utterly; it is as though the human
being became one great eye. The eye is lustful because it
requires the novel, the unusual, the spectacular. It cannot
satiate itself on the familiar, the routine, the everyday.

This lust may stoop to mindless curiosity, a primordial
impulse. Its typical response is an open-minded gaping at a
parade or at the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. How many
men in each generation have been drawn into the twilight of
confused and murderous battle "to see what it is like"? This

appeal of war is usually described as the desire to escape the
monotony of civilian life and the cramping restrictions of an
unadventurous existence. People are often bored with a day
that does not offer variety, distraction, threat, and insecurity.
They crave the satisfaction of the astonishing. Although war
notoriously offers monotony and boredom enough, it also
offers the outlandish, the exotic, and the strange. It offers the
opportunity of gaping at other lands and other peoples, at

29



THE WARRIORS

curious implements of war, at groups of others like themselves
marching in order, and at the captured enemy in a cage.

However, sensuous curiosity is only one level of seeing.
The word "see," with its many derivatives, like "insight" and
"vision," has an imaginative and intellectual connotation
which is far more expansive than the physical. Frequently we
are unable to separate these levels of seeing, to distinguish the
outer from the inner eye. This is probably no accident. The
human being is, after all, a unity, and the sensuous, imagina­
tive, and intellectual elements of his nature can fuse when he
is absorbed. Mindless curiosity is not separated as much as
we like to believe from what art lovers call the disinterested

contemplation of beauty. The delight in battle as a mere
spectacle may progress almost insensibly to an aesthetic con­
templation or to a more dominantly intellectual contempla­
tion of its awfulness. From the simplest soldier who gazes
openmouthed at the panorama of battle in his portion of the
field to the trained artist observing the scene, there is, I be­
lieve, only a difference of degree. The "seeing" both are
engaged in is for them an end in itself before it becomes a
spur to action. The dominant motive in both cases appears
to be neither the desire for knowledge, though there is much
that is instructive in the scene, nor the need to act, though
that, too, will become imperative. Their "seeing" is for the
sake of seeing, the lust of the eye, where the eye stands for the
whole human being, for man the observer.

There is a popular conviction that war and battle are the
sphere of ugliness, and, since aesthetic delight is associated
with the beautiful, it may be concluded that war is the natural
enemy of the aesthetic. I fear that this is in large part an
illusion. It is, first of all, wrong to believe that only beauty
can give us aesthetic delight; the ugly can please us too, as

eve]

is h

that
iliat
colo]

:�
ilien
mass

�ight
Gene
well

Of
ana]

Neff,
maKe
authc
tUnes

ora
Tney
�nips,
tical
lame

pria
Neff
i�!ic
Whe

war,

30



e as U1re

aes1etic��
al contem��'

:er wbo ���
�rtionol�f
iliereis Ire

•

c"Dotn!re

battle are ilif

is associ8t�
i the nalurru

rge part an

only beau�

� us too, I

The Enduring Appeal& oj Battle

every artist knows. And furthermore, beauty in various guises
is hardly foreign to scenes of battle. While it is undeniable
that the disorder and distortion and the violation of nature
that conflict brings are ugly beyond compare, there are also
color and movement, variety, panoramic sweep, and some­
times even momentary proportion and harmony. If we think
of beauty and ugliness without their usual moral overtones,
there is often a weird but genuine beauty in the sight of
massed men and weapons in combat. Reputedly, it was the
sight of advancing columns of men under fire that impelled
General Robert E. Lee to remark to one of his staff: "It is
well that war is so terrible-we would grow too fond of it."

Of course, it is said that modern battles lack all the color
and magnificence of spectacle common to earlier wars. John
Neff, in his valuable study entitled WaT and Human Progress,
makes much of the decline in our century of the power and

authority of what he calls "the claims of delight." In earlier
times men at war, he points out, were much more dominated
by artistic considerations in the construction of their weapons.
They insisted on the decorative and beautiful in cannons,
ships, and small arms, even at the obvious expense of the prac­
tical and militarily effective. Then, artists of great skill and
fame worked on weapons of war, and gunsmiths took great
pride in the beauty of their products. The claims of beauty,
Neff believes, have had to give way more and more to material­
istic and pragmatic aims in this century of total warfare.
When I remember some of the hideous implements of battle
in World War II, it is hard indeed not to agree with him.
Standardization and automatization of weapons have fre­

quently stripped them of any pretense to beauty.
This, though, is only one aspect of battle and of modern

war. What has been lost in one realm is compensated for in

31



32

cre8

hahi
mag
hard
absOI

hrinl
Irali\
reca�
�uch
�etl

hon1
ceme

aeligl
As

THE WARRIORS

another . War is now fought in the air as well as on land and
sea, and the expanse of vision and spectacle afforded by com­
bat planes is hard to exaggerate. Because these powerful new
weapons usually remove those who use them further from the
gruesome consequences of their firing, they afford more op­
portunity for aesthetic satisfaction. Combat in the skies is
seldom devoid of the form, grace, and harmony that ground
fighting lacks. There are spectacular sweep and drama, a
colorfulness and a precision about such combat which earlier
centuries knew only in a few great sea battles. It is true that
the roar of fighting planes can be unpleasant in its assault
upon the ears, and their dives upon their victims for strafing
or bombing can be terror-inspiring. But the combatant who is
relieved from participation and given the spectator's role can
nearly sate the eye with all the elements of fearful beauty.

I remember most vividly my feelings while watching from
a landing boat, on the morning of August 25, 1944, the
simultaneous bombardment of the French Riviera by our
planes and by our Beet of warships. We had come rela­
tively close to the targets under the cover of darkness. As
dawn broke and the outline of the coast appeared, thousands
of us watched motionless and silent, conscious that we would
be called upon to act only after the barrage and bombing were
over. Then we saw the planes, appearing from nowhere, and
in perfect alignment over their targets. Suddenly, fire and
smoke issued from huge cannon on our ships, and the invasion
had begun. Our eyes followed the planes as they dived into the
melee of smoke and flame and dust and emerged farther down
the coast to circle for another run. The assault of bomb and
shell on the line of coast was so furious that I half expected a
large part of the mainland to become somehow detached and
fall into the sea.

lenn

appe8
mani

�pirit

ports
perie
fort
aiffeD
Thls
sell 1
fore]
this



n land ana
ed by com.
awerlul new
her from lli�
ard more o�

the sklesi
y that �O��
and drama, I

a\ whlen earU�
.1t is true ��
t in i� aiIa�

tor'srolet41

ul�aury.

ea,fuousanru
iliat we woill�

a bomDin�were
nownere, an�

enlr fire an�
od �einvasio!

dived into �e

fartherao�
of bOmD an�

8li expected!
detachea an�

The Enduring Appeals of Battle

When I could forget the havoc and terror that was being
created by those shells and bombs among the half-awake in­
habitants of the villages, the scene was beyond all question
magnificent. I found it easily possible, indeed a temptation
hard to resist, to gaze upon the scene spellbound, completely
absorbed, indifferent to what the immediate future might
bring. Others appeared to manifest a similar intense concen­
tration on the spectacle. Many former soldiers must be able to
recall some similar experience. However incomprehensible
such scenes may be, and however little anyone would want to
see them enacted a second time, few of us can deny, if we are
honest, a satisfaction in having seen them. As far as I am con­
cerned, at least part of that satisfaction can be ascribed to
delight in aesthetic contemplation.

As I reflect further, it becomes clear, however, that the
term "beauty," used in any ordinary sense, is not the major
appeal in such spectacles. Instead, it is the fascination that
manifestations of power and magnitude hold for the human
spirit. Some scenes of battle, much like storms over the ocean
or sunsets on the desert or the night sky seen through a tele­
scope, are able to overawe the single individual and hold him
in a spell. He is lost in their majesty. His ego temporarily
deserts him, and he is absorbed into what he sees. An aware­
ness of power that far surpasses his limited imagination trans­
ports him into a state of mind unknown in his everyday ex­
periences. Fleeting as these rapt moments may be, they are,
for the majority of men, an escape from themselves that is very
different from the escapes induced by sexual love or alcohol.
This raptness is a joining and not a losing, a deprivation of
self in exchange for a union with objects that were hitherto
foreign. Yes, the chief aesthetic appeal of war surely lies in
this feeling of the sublime, to which we, children of nature,

33



34

taint
with

THE WARRIORS

are directed whether we desire it or not. Astonishment and
wonder and awe appear to he part of our deepest heing, and
war offers them an exercise field par excellence. As I wrote:

Yesterday morning we left Rome and took up the pursuit oj
the rapidly fleeing Germans. And again the march was past ruined,
blackened villages, destroyed vehicles, dead and mangled corpses
of German soldiers, dead and stinking horses, blown bridges, and
clouds of dust that blackened our faces and filled our clothes. • • •
Later I watched a full moon sail through a cloudy sky . . . saw
German bombers fly past and our antiaircraft bursts around them.
. . . I felt again the aching beauty of this incomparable land. I
remembered everything that I had ever been and was. It was pain­
ful and glorious.

What takes place in us when we are under the spell of this
powerful mood? It is often said that its deepest satisfaction
lies in the sense of personal exemption from the fate of others.
We watch them exposed to powers that overwhelm them, and
we enjoy the feelings of superiority of the secure. When human
beings are not involved, and feelings of the sublime steal over
us at the majestic in nature, this can be traced to a heightened
sense of the ego in one way or another. As spectators we are
superior to that which we survey. In my journal are these
words:

The
we

at th)
!elvel

nessl
neave
Know
olind
aescfI
lalioD
lor In

lor!

�uper�
Bul

lIisl
ilian
us at

on IH

This evening we watched a beautiful sunset over the Tyrrhenian
Sea. From our window we looked out on the wall-enclosed gardens
of Carano, where flowers blossomed and peach trees made the air
sweet with their white blossoms. Beyond them stretched fields and,
farther, the mountains, Formia, Gaeta, the sea. As the sun sank
behind the mountains, it illumined a cloud that was hanging low.
As we watched the wonderful pageantry of nature, the sound of
cannon was earned in on the evening air. We were forced to
realize that a few miles away, in this area we were gazing at, men
lurked with death in their hearts. We were looking over no man's

we a

!rom
able

scenq

La!
moae
reacn
wner,

ing �
O/Vl
whit



mnent ana
being, ana
As I wrote:

� pursuit 01
s past ruinea
ngted cor�!�
n bridges, aM
UT cwtMs""
y sky, ,,!al
L! around t�m
paraok �M,I

U(lJ, ItUJas��

e spe� 01 ��
. satisfactio�
ate of otn��,

the T)rrnenw!
.Iosed garaeru

5 ade tneair
hed fieUsa�,

thesunsonl
hanging low,
the SOUMO/

ere forced ro
a:ing ai, men
mnoman'!

The Enduring Appeals 0/ Battle

land. As it grew dark, huge signs 0/ fire appeared on the moun­
tain. It was mysterious, but we had no doubt that it had to do
with death and destruction.

The feeling of momentary depression, as Kant puts it, which
we initially succumb to when looking through a telescope
at the vastness of the heavens and the insignificance of our­
selves in comparison is soon supplanted by the conscious­
ness that we are the astronomers. It is we who know that the
heavens are empty and vast, and the heavens presumably
know nothing of us. The human spirit triumphs over these
blind forces and lifeless powers of nature. Such scenes as I
described above could be explained, by this view, as the exul­
tation of the spectators that they were not actors or sufferers,
for the sublime mood derives from a separation of the specta­
tor from the spectacle, and its pleasantness consists in the
superiority the ego feels.

But such a view is wrong, or, at the very least, one-sided.
It is the viewpoint of an egoistic, atomistic psychology rather
than the product of close observation. The awe that steals over
us at such times is not essentially a feeling of triumph, but,
on the contrary, a recognition of power and grandeur to which
we are subject. There is not so much a separation of the self
from the world as a subordination of the self to it. We are
able to disregard personal danger at such moments by tran­
scending the self, by forgetting our separateness.

Last evening I sat on a rock outside the town and watched a
modern battle, an artillery duel • . . the panorama was so far­
reaching that I could see both the explosion of the guns and
where their speedy messengers struck.... Several shells of reply­
ing batteries landed fairly close and made my perch not the safest
of vantage points. But it was an interesting, stirring sight. After a
while the firing died down and evening shadows came over the

35



36

ilian
WOrll

AI
Dook
�Ialir
asses!

word

�incel
unde�
lion ,1
requl!

10lhelwere
withol
iDGe)
ones I

lary
leldOI
!rom
ilie n

THE WARRIORS

valley. A townsman carrying a pail of swill for his hogs came by,
fell into conversation, and then asked me to await his return, when
he would take me to his home for a glass of wine.

Perhaps the majority of men cannot become so absorbed
in a spectacle that they overcome fear of pain and death.
Still, it is a common-enough phenomenon on the battlefield
that men expose themselves quite recklessly for the sake of
seeing. If ever the world is blown to bits by some superbomb,
there will be those who will watch the spectacle to the last
minute, without fear, disinterestedly and with detachment. I
do not mean that there is lack of interest in this disinterested­

ness or lack of emotion in this detachment. Quite the contrary.
But the self is no longer important to the observer; it is ab­
sorbed into the objects with which it is concerned.

I think the distinctive thing about the feeling of the sub­
lime is its ecstatic character, ecstatic in the original meaning
of the term, namely, a state of being outside the self. Even in
the common experience of mindless curiosity there is a mo­
mentary suppression of the ego, a slight breaking down of the
barriers of the self, though insignificant in comparison with
the rarer moods when we are filled with awe. This ecstasy
satisfies because we are conscious of a power outside us with
which we can merge in the relation of parts to whole. Feelings
neither of triumph nor of depression predominate. The per­
vasive sense of wonder satisfies us because we are assured that
we are part of this circling world, not divorced from it, or shut
up within the walls of the self and delivered over to the in­

sufficiency of the ego. Certain psychologists would call this
just another escape from the unpleasant facts of the self's
situation. If so, it is an escape of a very different sort from
the usual. We feel rescued from the emptiness within us. In
losing ourselves we gain a relationship to something greater

My'
mr Ii
fuen
wast

worla
fues

YOI
were

letter
nave
mucn
read,
nave



mparison M�
.mecst�
o�iae us wi�
nole. Feelin�
ate. Toe �fr·
e�ureailiil
om it, ors�ijl
wtotne�
uld ca� tlili

of the se�'1

nt sort from

'thin us. I�

The Enduring Appeals 0/ Battle

than the self, and the foreign character of the surrounding
world is drastically reduced.

A good example of what I am saying can be found in a little
book entitled Letzte Briefe aus Stalingrad (Last Letters from
Stalingrad). In 1943 the German high command, anxious to
assess the morale of the encircled soldiers at Stalingrad, sent
word that mail would be forwarded to their homes by plane.
Since the situation had become desperate, most of the men
understood that this would probably be their last communica­
tion with home. After the letters were written, they were
requisitioned by German security officers and never delivered
to the addressees. At the end of the war, the packets of letters
were discovered in police buildings, and a selection from them,
without the names of the men who wrote them, was published
in Germany. These letters, intended only for the eyes of loved
ones by men who were experiencing the bitter shock of mili­
tary defeat after spectacular victories, have a stark quality
seldom found in war literature. The following translation is
from the first one in the little volume, and is obviously from
the hand of a military meteorologist:

My life has not changed at all. Just as it was ten years ago,
my life is blessed by the stars and shunned by man. I had even
then no friends and you know why they avoided me. My happiness
was to sit in front of the telescope and peer at the sky and the
world of the stars, pleased as a child who is allowed to play with
the stars.

You were my best friend, Monika. No, you read it aright; you
were my best friend. The time is too serious for joking. This
letter will need fourteen days to reach you. By that time you will
have read in the papers what has happened here. Don't think too
much about it. The facts will be quite different from what you
read, but let other people worry about setting them straight. I
have always thought in light-years and felt in seconds. Here too

37



THE WARRIORS

I am busy with recording weather conditions. Four of us are
working together and if things would go on like this, we would
be content. The work itself is easy. We have the task of recording
temperature and humidity, reporting on cloudiness and visibility.
If one of these bureaucrats were to read what I am writing, his
eyes would pop-violation of security!

Monika, what does our life amount to in comparison with the
millions of years of the starry heavens! Andromeda and Pegasus
are just over my head on this lovely night. I have been looking
at them for a long time; soon I shall be near them. I can thank
the stars for my contentment and serenity. You are, of course, for
me the most beautiful star! The stars are immortal and the life
of man is like a particle of dust in the universe.

Everything around us is collapsing, a whole army is dying,
and night and day are aflame. And four people are busily record­
ing temperatures and cloud conditions! I don't understand much
about war. No human being has ever fallen by my hand. I never
even aimed my pistol at a target. But this I do know: our op­
ponents do not demonstrate our lack of intelligence. I would have
liked to continue counting stars for a few decades but nothing will
come of it now.

sure,

was a

and H
of ca�

lngs t

Iney �
rarely

1ft

This letter, from a German soldier, reveals, I think, the
writer's power to attach himself to the things of nature and
feel their kinship to him even in a world aflame. At moments
he does feel his moral responsibility to a human being who
probably loves him and will mourn for him. "You are, of
course, for me the most beautiful star!" The "of course"
sounds like a twinge of conscience which reveals where his
real heart lies, for his thoughts whirl immediately back again
to his vision of the truly important and immortal things of
the universe, which he hopes soon to be approaching. Even in
a situation where safety and life itself are at stake, this soldier
holds fast to his feelings of kinship with the universe about
him and loses himself in contemplating its wonders. To be

�ears
sallenl
and al
lust 0

Moral

lugl!i
ecsla!l

Ineae
Ine h�
lion 0

not b
Killin
ecsla!

moral
cann]
aller

�oals

�
coml

mon

seld(
vesti
relal

38



arisen with �
da and Pe��
ve been loo�
em. 1 canlhitt

a e of COIl!Se,j�
ortaj and llie�

e liofcolmI'
ea� wnere W

ely bacK a�!w
rtal thin� �I

bing. Evenw
e, this soJai�
'verse �om

Iders, To �

The Enduring Appeau 0/ Battle

sure, he is doubtless an exception. He tells us himself that he
was accustomed to being alone with his thoughts a great deal,
and he is an astronomer. Perhaps most soldiers are incapable
of carrying absorption so far. Yet many have felt similar urg­
ings toward the infinite in moments of extremity, and, though
they cannot be articulate about such experiences, they are
rarely quite the same afterward.

If the delight in seeing, especially in its higher reaches, ap­
pears to be a noble quality in men, we should not forget one
salient fact: It nearly always involves a neglect of moral ideals
and an absence of concern for the practical. That is why the
lust of the eye is roundly condemned in Biblical context.
Morality involves action, while seeing, in all of its meanings, is a
fugitive from action. Morality is based on the social; the
ecstatic, on the other hand, is transsocial. The fulfillment of
the aesthetic is in contemplation, and it shuns the patience and
the hard work that genuine morality demands. The deteriora­
tion of moral fervor, which is a consequence of every war, may
not be entirely due to the reversal of values that fighting and
killing occasion. May it not be also a consequence of aesthetic
ecstasy, which is always pressing us beyond the border of the
morally permissible? The experience in memory may be un­
canny and leave no desire for repetition. Yet we find it difficult
after the war to regain the full conviction of previous moral
goals.

Another appeal of war, the communal experience we call
comradeship, is thought, on the other hand, to be especially
moral and the one genuine advantage of battle that peace can
seldom offer. Whether this is true or not deserves to be in­

vestigated. The term "comradeship" covers a large number of
relationships, from the most personal to the anonymous and

39



40

call:
Littl

THE WARRIORS

general, and here I will consider only some essentials of mili­
tary comradeship. What calls it into being in battle, what
strengthens or weakens it, what is its essential attraction?

The feeling of belonging together that men in battle often
find a cementing force needs first to be awakened by an ex­
ternal reason for fighting, but the feeling is by no means de­
pendent on this reason. The cause that calls comradeship into
being may be the defense of one's country, the propagation
of the one true religious faith, or a passionate political ide­
ology; it may be the maintenance of honor or the recovery
of a Helen of Troy. So long as there is a cause, the hoped-for
objective may be relatively unimportant in itself. When,
through military reverses or the fatiguing and often horrible
experiences of combat, the original purpose becomes obscured,
the fighter is often sustained solely by the determination not
to let down his comrades.

Numberless soldiers have died, more or less willingly, not
for country or honor or religious faith or for any other ab­
stract good, but because they realized that by fleeing their
post and rescuing themselves, they would expose their com­
panions to greater danger. Such loyalty to the group is the
essence of fighting morale. The commander who can preserve
and strengthen it knows that all other psychological or physical
factors are little in comparison. The feeling of loyalty, it is
clear, is the result, and not the cause, of comradeship. Com­
rades are loyal to each other spontaneously and without any
need for reasons. Men may learn to be loyal out of fear or
from rational conviction, loyal even to those they dislike. But
such loyalty is rarely reliable with great masses of men unless
it has some cement in spontaneous liking and the feeling of
belonging.

Though comradeship is dependent on being together physi-

Comj

aang
havir
erb t
ticu!a
volve
room

longi]
respo
clear!

Gel
camp

:;�IIilierUnde
a�o e

�Iowll
natu�

COnfil
than

expl
peopl

if po
occ�
a vel

mod
tot

the



lals of mill.
battle, What
ltaction1
, battle o!t��
,ed by an �!,
no meansQ�,

radeshi� int�
e pro�a�ati��
e political iQ�'
r the recov�ry
. the ho�eQ.!m
itseU. \V1��
olten norriDll

e �Oll� iS�1

o can �resem
'cal or�nrsi�
f IOJalt11 it �
adesni�, LO�

witholltaD!
ul of fear m

y dislike. �m

f men unl�

e feelin� 01

The Enduring Appeals 01 Battle

cally in time and space, it is not a herding animal instinct.
Little can be learned, I am convinced, from attempting to
compare animal and human forms of association. In extreme

danger and need, there is undeniably a minimal satisfaction in
having others of your own species in your vicinity. The prov­
erb that "misery loves company" is not without basis, par­
ticularly in situations where defense and aggression are in­
volved. But it is equally true that men can live in the same
room and share the same suffering without any sense of be­
longing together. They can live past each other and be ir­
responsible toward each other, even when their welfare is
clearly dependent on co-operation.

German soldiers who endured Russian prisoner-of-war
camps in the decade after World War II have described con­

vincingly how the Communist system succeeded in destroying
any sense of comradeship among prisoners simply by making
the results of individual labor the basis of food allotments.
Under a system like this, men can not only eat their fill but
also enjoy superfluity without any concern for a mate who may
slowly be starving to death. This lamentable fact about human
nature has too often been observed to require much further
confirmation. The physical proximity of men can do no more
than create the minimal conditions of comradeship. It no more
explains the communal appeal of war than it explains why
people love cities.

What then are the important components of comradeship,
if physical presence is only a minimal condition? The one that
occurs immediately is organization for a common goal. Even
a very loose type of organization can induce many people to
moderate their self-assertiveness and accommodate themselves
to the direction of a superpersonal will. Everyone is aware of
the vast difference between a number of men as a chance col-

41



42

THE WARRIORS

Iection of individuals and the same number as an organized
group or community. A community has purpose and plan, and
there is in us an almost instinctive recognition of the connec­
tion between unity and strength.

Those who stand in disorganized masses against smaller
groups of the organized are always aware of the tremendous
odds against them. The sight of huge crowds of prisoners of
war being herded toward collection centers by a few guards
with rifles slung over their backs is one filled with pathos. It
is not the absence of weapons that makes these prisoners help­
less before their guards. It is the absence of a common will, the
failing assurance that others will act in concert with you
against the conquerors.

But organization is of many kinds, and the military kind
is special in aiming at common and concrete goals. The or­
ganization of a civilian community, a city, for example, is not
without goals, but they are rarely concrete, and many members
are hardly aware of their existence. If a civilian community
has goals with more reality and power to endure than military
goals, as I believe it does, its goals are, nevertheless, unable
to generate the degree of loyalty that a military organization
can.

In war it is a commonplace of command that the goals of
the fighting forces need to be clear and to be known. Natu­
rally, the over-all goal is to win the war and then go home.
But in any given action, the goal is to overcome the attacking
enemy or, if you are the attacker, to win the stated objective.
Any fighting unit must have a limited and specific objective,
and the more defined and bounded it is, the greater the will­
ingness, as a rule, on the part of soldiers to abandon their
natural desire for self-preservation. Officers soon learn to dread
hazy and ill-defined orders from above. If the goal is physical,

q
desl
like
com

obst
unit
detel
indi

01

orgal
radel

dang
fon
deat!
ilie I

answ

end
DI

mon

awa�

The
or 0

mit

si�ni
sex I
vita�
ofro
COIlll

TI
ofa
denl
eve]



tremenaoUl
prisoners oj

a few guarm
�tb pailio�,lt
prisoners nel�
mmon will, t��
cert with rOij

The- Enduring Appeau of Battle

a piece of earth to take or defend, a machine-gun nest to
destroy, a strong point to annihilate, officers are much more
likely to evoke the sense of comradeship. They realize that
comradeship at first develops through the consciousness of an
obstacle to be overcome through common effort. A fighting
unit with morale is one in which many are of like mind and

determination, unconsciously agreed on the suppression of
individual desires in the interest of a shared purpose.

Organization for a common and concrete goal in peacetime
organizations does not evoke anything like the degree of com­
radeship commonly known in war. Evidently, the presence of
danger is distinctive and important. Men then are organized
for a goal whose realization involves the real possibility of
death or injury. How does danger break down the barriers of
the self and give man an experience of community? The
answer to this question is the key to one of the oldest and most
enduring incitements to battle.

Danger provides a certain spice to experience; this is com­
mon knowledge. It quickens the pulse and makes us more
aware of being alive by calling attention to our physical selves.
The thrill of the chase in hunting, of riding a horse very fast,
or of driving an automobile recklessly is of this sort. But the
excitement created in us by such activities has little communal
significance. Its origin appears to be sexual, if we understand
sex in the wide sense given to it by Freud. The increased
vitality we feel where danger is incidental is due to awareness
of mastery over the environment. It is an individualist, not a
communal, drive.

The excitement and thrill of battle, on the other hand, are
of a different sort, for there danger is central and not inci­
dental. There is little of the play element about combat, how­
ever much there may have been in training for it. Instead, for

43



THE WARRIORS

most soldiers there is the hovering inescapable sense of ir­
reversibility. "This is for keeps," as soldier slang is likely to
put it. This profound earnestness is by no means devoid of
lightheartedness, as seen in teasing and horseplay, but men
are conscious that they are on a one-way street, so to speak,
and what they do or fail to do can be of great consequence.
Those who enter into battle, as distinguished from those who
only hover on its fringes, do not fight as duelists fight. Almost
automatically, they fight as a unit, a group. Training can help
a great deal in bringing this about more quickly and easily in
an early stage. But training can only help to make actual what
is inherent. As any commander knows, an hour or two of
combat can do more to weld a unit together than can months
of intensive training.

Many veterans who are honest with themselves will admit,
I believe, that the experience of communal effort in battle,
even under the altered conditions of modern war, has been a

high point in their lives. Despite the horror, the weariness, the
grime, and the hatred, participation with others in the chances
of battle had its unforgettable side, which they would not want
to have missed. For anyone who has not experienced it himself,
the feeling is hard to comprehend, and, for the participant,
hard to explain to anyone else. Probably the feeling of libera­
tion is nearly basic. It is this feeling that explains the curious
combination of earnestness and lightheartedness so often noted
in men in battle.

Many of us can experience freedom as a thrilling reality,
something both serious and joyous, only when we are acting
in unison with others for a concrete goal that costs something
absolute for its attainment. Individual freedom to do what we
will with our lives and our talents, the freedom of self-de­
termination, appears to us most of the time as frivolous or

burc
undi

I �o�
jOYOI
and c
nom

w�:
nas �
ilie e�
aeriv�

inniVilwe aTwith t
like t�
�epar
nave I

men
a kin
into

iijcel

At
unIik
ca�iOl

lon�
�ame

war
or th

toge�
�ity,
less
war



sense of u.
is likely to

devoid 01
�aYl but men
1 so to spe�,

consequenc�,
om those wn�

fight. A��t

frivolous or

The Enduring Appeals of Battle

burdensome. Such freedom leaves us empty and alone, feeling
undirected and insignificant. Only comparatively few of us
know how to make this individual freedom productive and
joyous. But communal freedom can pervade nearly everyone
and carry everything before it. This elemental fact about free­
dom the opponents of democracy have learned well, and it
constitutes for them a large initial advantage.

The lightheartedness that communal participation brings
has little of the sensuous or merely pleasant about it, just as
the earnestness has little of the calculating or rational. Both
derive instead from a consciousness of power that is supra­
individual. We feel earnest and gay at such moments because
we are liberated from our individual impotence and are drunk
with the power that union with our fellows brings. In moments
like these many have a vague awareness of how isolated and

separate their lives have hitherto been and how much they
have missed by living in the narrow circle of family or a few
friends. With the boundaries of the self expanded, they sense
a kinship never known before. Their "I" passes insensibly
into a "we," "my" becomes "our," and individual fate loses
its central importance.

At its height, this sense of comradeship is an ecstasy not
unlike the aesthetic ecstasy previously described, though oc­
casioned by different forces. In most of us there is a genuine
longing for community with our human species, and at the
same time an awkwardness and helplessness about finding the
way to achieve it. Some extreme experience--mortal danger
or the threat of destruction-is necessary to bring us fully
together with our comrades or with nature. This is a great
pity, for there are surely alternative ways more creative and
less dreadful, if men would only seek them out. Until now,
war has appealed because we discover some of the mysteries

45



THE WARRIORS

of communal joy in its forbidden depths. Comradeship reaches
its peak in battle.

The secret of comradeship has not been exhausted, how­
ever, in the feeling of freedom and power instilled in us by
communal effort in combat. There is something more and
equally important. The sense of power and liberation that
comes over men at such moments stems from a source heyond
the union of men. I believe it is nothing less than the assurance
of immortality that makes self-sacrifice at these moments 80
relatively easy. Men are true comrades only when each is
ready to give up his life for the other, without reflection and
without thought of personal loss. Who can doubt that every
war, the two world wars no less than former ones, has pro­
duced true comradeship like this?

Such sacrifice seems herd and heroic to those who have
never felt communal ecstasy. In fact, it is not nearly so diffi­
cult as many less absolute acts in peacetime and in civilian
life, for death becomes in a measure unreal and unbelievahle
to one who is sharing his life with his companions. Immor­
tality is not something remote and otherworldly, possibly or
probably true and real; on the contrary, it becomes a present
and self-evident fact.

Nothing is further from the truth than the insistence of cer­
tain existentialist philosophers that each person must die his
own death and experience it unsharably. If that were so, how
many lives would have been spared on the battlefield! But in
fact, death for men united with each other can be shared as
few other of life's great moments can be. To be sure, it is not
death as we know it usually in civilian life. In the German
language men never die in battle. They fall. The term is
exact for the expression of self-sacrifice when it is motivated
by the feeling of comradeship. I may fall, but I do not die,

for tha

comrad
Let r

iliousall
oittered
any otH

niers ha

\nevery
has lost i

there
dier-comJ
anama
accident
ilieirmi
"Onwan
Inat our

Thelrue
AuHf
\o�, fo
�tn a
lerenc!
notvisl

illr di,
� inh�
capabl

capab]01 res
i� stl

comf
T1

by I
spol

46



austed, how,
t�ed in us 1,
hing more ani

liberation �II
a source b�r�!1
an the assUI�

th� mom�!ijM
nly when ���
out reBec!i�!�
doubt �al ��
er ones, n� �r�

�ose wno �Ir�
o! nearlrsoi
e and in civili@
and unlJeu�f�j�
panions, I1ll1IJ�r'
Idly, poS!wlr �r

omes a pr�DI

,is!enceofw,
n must aieM

twereso,how
ene/d! Bu! ID
be shared �

ne term �

motivale�

ro not die,

The Enduring Appeals oj Battle

for that which is real in me goes forward and lives on in the
comrades for whom I gave up my physical life.

Let me not be misunderstood. It is unquestionably true that
thousands of soldiers die in battle, miserable, alone, and em­
bittered, without any conviction of self-sacrifice and without
any other satisfactions. I suspect the percentage of such sol­
diers has increased markedly in recent wars. But for those who
in every battle are seized by the passion for self-sacrifice, dying
has lost its terrors because its reality has vanished.

There must be a similarity between this willingness of sol­
dier-comrades for self-sacrifice and the willingness of saints
and martyrs to die for their religious faith. It is probably no
accident that the religions of the West have not cast away
their military terminology or even their militant character­
"Onward, Christian soldiers! Marching as to war . . ." nor
that our wars are defended in terms of devotion and salvation.
The true believer must be ready to give up his life for the faith.
And if he is a genuine saint he will regard this sacrifice as no
loss, for the self has become indestructible in being united
with a supreme reality. There are, of course, important dif..
ferences. The reality for which the martyr sacrifices himself is
not visible and intimate like the soldier's. The martyr usu­

ally dies alone, scorned by the multitude. In this sense his lot
is infinitely harder. It is hardly surprising that few men are
capable of dying joyfully as martyrs whereas thousands are
capable of self-sacrifice in wartime. Nevertheless, a basic point
of resemblance remains, namely, that death has lost not only
its sting but its reality, too, for the self that dies is little in
comparison with that which survives and triumphs.

This is the mystical element of war that has been mentioned
by nearly all serious writers on the subject. William James
spoke of it as a sacrament, and once remarked that "society

47



I knew this rock well. I had lived under the shadow of it all my
life. All our Western thought is founded on this repulsive pretence
that pain is the proper price of any good thing. Here it could be
seen how the meaning of the Crucifixion had heen hidden from
us, though it was written clear. A supremely good man was born

THE WARRIORS

would rot without the mystical blood payment." And G. F.
Nicolai, in his book The Biology of War, is persuaded that
"the boundless capacity for self-sacrifice" is what is intoxicat­
ing and great about war. It is this that occasions frequent
doubt in lovers of peace whether men will ever give up war­
fare, and, at times, the vagrant question whether it is desirable
that they should. This capacity for self-sacrifice is what all
defenders of war (in our day grown few) use as their final
argument for the necessity and ultimate morality of war: Since
men can only be brought by such extreme means to a recogni­
tion of their true nature and their essential relationships, these
defenders tell us, it is folly to seek to abolish war, because it
would be to abolish death itself.

Many humanists and humanitarians, on the other hand, at­
tack the impulse to self-sacrifice as the very core of moral evil.
It offends their whole rational image of the distinctively hu­
man. And the more forthright do not hesitate to express their
abhorrence for the Christian faith insofar as it is founded on
the theme of self-sacrifice. Readers of Rebecca West's Black
Lamb and Grey Faleon will not easily forget the bitterness
with which she deals with the notion of sacrifice and her re­
jection of Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, and Luther for burden­
ing the Christian faith with "this ugly theme."

Her reflections, after witnessing a rather gruesome cere­
mony in the backwaters of Yugoslavia in which black lambs
are sacrificed in the belief that they will heal the local peasants
of sundry diseases, conclude as follows:

on

mal

fatu
seeu

this

II

the

peo]
trac

aUr

diff
bee
me

will
ilial
oil
of t
leOl

pre
1

48



intoxicat.
.

s frequent
ve up war.
is desir�le
is what �
s their hnru

of war:�inre

The Enduring Appeals of Battle

on earth, a man who was without cruelty, who could have taught
mankind to live in perpetual happiness; and because we are in­
fatuated with this idea of sacrifice, of shedding innocent blood to
secure innocent advantages, we found nothing better to do with
this passport to deliverance than to destroy him.

esome cere·

lacK lamD!
al peasan�

It is true that we in the West are frequently infatuated with
the idea of sacrifice, particularly self-sacrifice. Why are some
people so strongly repelled and others again and again at­
tracted by the impulse to self-sacrifice? Or why do both
attraction and repulsion have place in the same breast at
different moments? As moralists, we are repelled, I suspect,
because the impulse to sacrifice is not subject to rational judg­
ment and control. It takes hold of us and forces us against our
will, later claiming justification from some higher authority
than the human. As often as not, it puts itself at the service
of an evil cause, perhaps more frequently than in the service
of the good. The mysterious power that such leaders as Napo­
leon, Hitler, and Stalin had in their being that enabled them
to create a love for self-sacrifice perplexes us endlessly. We
cannot condemn it with full conviction, since it seems likely
that both leaders and led were in large degree powerless to
prevent the impulses that dominated them.

Yet such power is appalling beyond measure and from a
rational viewpoint deserving of the deepest condemnation. The
limits of free will and morality are transgressed, and man is
forced to seek religious and metaphysical justification for self­
sacrifice, even when committed in an evil cause. As in the
aesthetic appeal of war, when we reach the impulse of the
sublime, so in the communal appeal of comradeship, when we
reach the impulse to self-sacrifice, we are confronted with
contradictions that are deeply embedded in our culture, if not
in human nature itself. What our moral self tells us is abhor-

f il allmr
ve prelence
ilcoula�
dden from

was born

49



THE WARRIORS

rent, our religious self and our aesthetic self yearn for as the
ultimate good. This is part of the riddle of war.

If we are truly wise, perhaps we should not want to alter
these capacities of our human nature, even though we suffer
from them immeasurably and may yet succumb to their threat.
For the willingness to sacrifice self, like the attraction of the
sublime, is what makes possible the higher reaches of the spirit
into the realms of poetry, philosophy, and genuine religion.
They prevent our best men from losing interest in and hope
for our species. They stand in the way of discouragement and
cynicism. As moralists, we can condemn Saint Paul and Saint
Augustine for their mystical conviction that without sacrifice
no purgation from sin is possible. But we should be cautious
in so doing, for they were convinced that without the supra­
moral act, we human beings are not able to lead even a nor­
mally moral existence. Though they were not disposed to be­
lieve that God was without moral qualities, they were quite
certain that there was more in His universe than the deter­
minations of good and evil. For them the "I am" preceded
logically and in time the "I ought." And vast numbers of
people have agreed with them that the religious order is su­
perior to the moral, though they continue to be confused about
how the two are related.

Are we not right in honoring the fighter's impulse to sacri­
fice himself for a comrade, even though it be done, as it so
frequently is, in an evil cause? I think so. It is some kind of
world historical pathos that the striving for union and for
immortality must again and again be consummated while men
are in the service of destruction. I do not doubt for a moment
that wars are made many times more deadly because of this
striving and this impulse. Yet I would not want to be without
the assurance their existence gives me that our species has a

dine
often
too.

If
our f

confi(
in od
fare I

much
on t�

eyes
descn

targe
light
thq
pers
cal e
the

appe

plan
M

Dev

cape

pret
ene)

hau

Ion!
the
lite
ane

50



for as the

ant to alter
;h we suffer
their threat
ction of lli�
of thespiri!

ine reli�on,
in ana no�

out sacrilic�
be cau!ioll!

tiliesupra.

Were�!f
ilie ae!�r·

"

preceaea
numbers 01

e, as i! �o

e Kina 01

while men
amomen!

of tlll�

e wiiliou!
ies has a

The Enduring Appeau 0/ Battle

different destiny than is granted to other animals. Though we
often sink below them, we can at moments rise above them,
too.

If the lust of the eye and the yearning for communion with
our fellows were the only appeals of combat, we might be
confident that they would be ultimately capable of satisfaction
in other ways. But my own observation and the history of war­
fare both convince me that there is a third impulse to battle
much more sinister than these. Anyone who has watched men
on the battlefield at work with artillery, or looked into the
eyes of veteran killers fresh from slaughter, or studied the
descriptions of bombardiers' feelings while smashing their
targets, finds hard to escape the conclusion that there is a de­
light in destruction. A walk across any battlefield shortly after
the guns have fallen silent is convincing enough. A sensitive
person is sure to be oppressed by a spirit of evil there, a radi­
cal evil which suddenly makes the medieval images of hell and
the thousand devils of that imagination believable. This evil
appears to surpass mere human malice and to demand ex­

planation in cosmological and religious terms.
Men who have lived in the zone of combat long enough to

be veterans are sometimes possessed by a fury that makes them
capable of anything. Blinded by the rage to destroy and su­
premely careless of consequences, they storm against the
enemy until they are either victorious, dead, or utterly ex­
hausted. It is as if they are seized by a demon and are no
longer in control of themselves. From the Homeric account of
the sacking of Troy to the conquest of Dienbienphu, Western
literature is filled with descriptions of soldiers as berserkers
and mad destroyers.

Perhaps the following account from the diary of Ernst

51



THE WARRIORS

Juenger in World War I may stand for many because it is so
concise and exactly drawn. It describes the beginning of the
last German offensive in the West.

The great moment had come. The curtain of fire lifted from the
front trenches. We stood up.

With a mixture of feelings, evoked by bloodthirstiness, rage,
and intoxication, we moved in step, ponderously but irresistibly
toward the enemy lines. I was well ahead of the company, fol­
lowed by Vinke and a one-year veteran named Haake. My right
hand embraced the shaft of my pistol, my left a riding stick of
bamboo cane. I was boiling with a mad rage, which had taken
hold of me and all the others in an incomprehensible fashion. The
overwhelming wish to kill gave wings to my feet. Rage pressed
hitter tears from my eyes.

The monstrous desire for annihilation, which hovered over the
hattlefield, thickened the hrains of the men and submerged them
in a red fog. We called to each other in sobs and stammered dis­
connected sentences. A neutral observer might have perhaps be­
lieved that we were seized hy an excess of happiness.

Happiness is doubtless the wrong word for the satisfaction
that men experience when they are possessed by the lust to
destroy and to kill their kind. Most men would never admit
that they enjoy killing, and there are a great many who do not.
On the other hand, thousands of youths who never suspected
the presence of such an impulse in themselves have learned
in military life the mad excitement of destroying. The appe­
tite is one that requires cultivation in the environment of dis­
order and deprivation common to life at the front. It usually
marks the great difference between green troops and veterans.
Generals often name it "the will to close with the enemy."
This innocent-sounding phrase conceals the very substance of
the delight in destruction slumbering in most of us. When
soldiers step over the line that separates self-defense from

figl
ex�
sol�

coni
stru

a

urg
who
his
his
abo
hay

jOyl
his

an

ca

52



ted from�!

tiness, ra�!,
ut inesi!lini,
companr, !oI.

aake, Mr ri��1
riding sticK 01
ien nad lah!

lefasruon,Th!
Rage preilOO

e satisfacti��

y ilie lustt�
never admit

woo aOD�!.
er suspectoo
ave learnoo

, The apJ»
entof�

,It usu�r

e enemr,"
stance 01

us, When

rnse from

The Enduring Appeals of Battle

fighting for its own sake, as it is so easy for them to do, they
experience something that stirs deep chords in their being. The
soldier-killer is learning to serve a different deity, and his
concern is with death and not life, destruction and not con­
struction.

Of the many writers who are pteoccupied today with man's
urge toward destruction, Ernest Hemingway stands out as one
who has succeeded in incorporating the spirit of violence in
his men and women. In his For Whom the Bell ToUs, he has
his hero say at one point: "Stop making dubious literature
about the Berbers and the old Iberians and admit that you
have liked to kill as all who are soldiers by choice have en­
joyed it at some time whether they lie about it or not." And
his old colonel in the more recent book A cross the River and
into the Trees is as profound a portrait of the soldier-killer as
we have seen in recent literature. The colonel is so far aware
of this impulse to destruction in himself that he tries to
counterbalance it by the contrary appeal, namely, Eros, in the
form of the young and beautiful countess. This latter book
has been harshly criticized from an artistic point of view, and
not many have seen, I believe, how well Hemingway grasps
the two primordial forces that are in conflict within the
colonel, as within many a professional warrior, conflicts that
can be resolved in a fashion only by death.

Sigmund Freud has labeled these forces in human nature
the Eros drive or instinct, the impulse within us that strives
for closer union with others and seeks to preserve and con­

serve, and the Thanatos (death) drive or instinct, the impulse
that works for the dissolution of everything living or united.
Freud felt that these two are in eternal conflict within man,
and he became, consequently, pessimistic about ever eradi­
cating war as an institution. Men are in one part of their being

53



THE WARRIORS

in love with death, and periods of war in human society repre­
sent the dominance of this impulsion.

Of course, this idea of an independent destructive force in
life is age-old. The early Greek philosopher Empedocles gave
imaginative form to a cosmology in which two universal prin­
ciples explain the universe. Empedocles taught that the uni­
verse is in ceaseless change, in generation and decay, because
Love and Strife are ever at work in the animate and the in­
animate. Love unites all forms of life, for a period holding the
upper hand, and Strife tears them apart and breaks down
what previously belonged together. The original components
are not annihilated, but simply dispersed in various forms by
Strife. They are able to form new unions once more, and the
endless process of composition and decomposition continues.
Empedocles conceived both forces as of equal strength, both
eternal, and both mixed equally in all things. In this imagina­
tive vision of the world process, he sees, also, a necessary
relationship between these cosmological powers, an insight
that is sounder and more fruitful than most modern concep­
tions.

We are tempted under the influence of Darwinian thought
to explain away man'8 delight in destruction as a regressive
impulse, a return to primitivism and to animal nature. We
picture, sometimes with the help of Freudians, all our cul­
tural institutions as a kind of mask covering up the animalistic
instincts that lie beneath the surface of all behavior. Such a
view tends to explain all phenomena of human destructive­
ness, from the boyish pleasure in the tinkle of broken glass to
the sadistic orgies of concentration camps, as a reassertion of
man's animal nature under the veneer of culture. Man when
he destroys is an animal; when he conserves he is distinctively
human.

54

as

pe
OUI

ao

t'W

th



iety repre.

ve force in
docles gave
iversal prin.

at the unl.
cay, beca�

and the �

holdin�ln�
breab aown

� componenu
'ous fonn� Dr
more, ana ili�

The Enduring Appeals of Battle

I cannot escape the conviction that this is an illusion, and
a dangerous one. When man is at his destructive work, he is
on a different plane from the animal altogether. And destruc­
tive urges are as capable of being found in highly cultivated
natures as in the simpler ones, if not more so. The satisfaction
in destroying seems to me peculiarly human, or, more exactly
put, devilish in a way animals can never be. We sense in it

always the Mephistophelean cry that all created things deserve
to be destroyed. Sometimes there is no more concrete motive
for destroying than this one, just as there is no expressible
motive for creating. I described this kind of wanton behavior
in my journal one night.

It was an unforgivable spectacle. They shamed us as Americans,
as colleagues and junior officers, they shamed us before our hired
people. Our President lay on his bier in Washington, boys from
our Division lay wounded and dying on the battlefields round
about, and these lordly colonels drank themselves senseless and
wantonly destroyed property with their pistols. It was a commen­
tary on the war, on the uselessness of fighting for ideals, on the
depravity of the military life.

Indeed, there are many important similarities, I feel, be­
tween the creative and destructive urges in most of us. Surely
the immediate sense of release that is the satisfaction in ac­

complishment and mastery is not very different in the two
impulses. One may become a master in one field as in the
other, and there are perhaps as many levels of accomplish­
ment. Few men ever reach superlatives in the realm of destruc­
tion; most of us remain, as in the domain of creation, mod­
erately capable.

But artistry in destruction is qualitatively different in its
effects upon the individual, in a way that minimizes similari­
ties. It loosens one by one our ties with others and leaves us

55



THE WARRIORS

in the end isolated and alone. Destruction is an artistry di­
rected not toward perfection and fulfillment, but toward chaos
and moral anarchy. Its delights may be deep and within the
reach of more men than are the joys of creation, but their
capacity to reproduce and to endure is very limited. Just as
creation raises us above the level of the animal, destruction
forces us below it by eliminating communication. As creativity
can unite us with our natural and human environment, de­
struction isolates us from both. That is why destruction in
retrospect usually appears so repellent in its inmost nature.

If we ask what the points of similarity are between the
appeal of destruction and the two appeals of war I have al­
ready examined, I think it is not difficult to recognize that the
delight in destroying has, like the others, an ecstatic character.
But in one sense only. Men feel overpowered by it, seized from
without, and relatively helpless to change or control it. Never­
theless, it is an ecstasy without a union, for comradeship
among killers is terribly difficult, and the kinship with nature
that aesthetic vision often affords is closed to them. Nor is the

breaking down of the barriers of self a quality of the appeal
of destroying. On the contrary, I think that destruction is ulti­
mately an individual matter, a function of the person and not
the group. This is not to deny, of course, that men go herserk
in groups and kill more easily together than when alone. Yet
the satisfaction it brings appears to lie, not in losing them­
selves and their egos, but precisely in greater consciousness of
themselves. If they hold together as partners in destruction,
it is not so much from a feeling of helonging as from fear
of retaliation when alone.

The willingness to sacrifice self for comrades is no longer
characteristic of soldiers who have become killers for pleasure.
War henceforth becomes for them increasingly what the phi-

56

IOSQ
hUIll
dier

pres
char
deli

The
maK
fierc
for
sam

men

H
inH
and
man

erotr
into
are

Ikno
enol

we

frig
frui
�uc



artistry di.
ward chaos
l within ilie
n, but theu
ited, Just 3!
I, destruction
AscreatiTIry

,

onment,oe,
destruction m

The Enduring Appeals 0/ Battle

losopher Hobbes thought to be the primal condition of all
human life, a war of every man against every man. That sol­
dier-killers seldom reach this stage must be attributed to the

presence of other impulses in their nature and to the episodical
character of battle and combat. I can hardly doubt that the
delight in destruction leads in this direction.

This is not the only melancholy consequence of this im­
pulse, for its very nature is to be totalitarian and exclusive.
Unlike other delights, it becomes, relatively soon in most men,
a consuming lust which swallows up other pleasures. It tends
to turn men inward upon themselves and make them inacces­
sible to more normal satisfactions. Because they rarely can
feel remorse, they experience no purgation and cannot grow.
The utter absence of love in this inverted kind of creation
makes the delight essentially sterile. Though there may be a
fierce pride in the numbers destroyed and in their reputation
for proficiency, soldier-killers usually experience an ineffable
sameness and boredom in their lives. The restlessness of such
men in rest areas behind the front is notorious.

How deeply is this impulse to destroy rooted and persistent
in human nature? Are the imaginative visions of Empedocles
and Freud true in conceiving that the destructive element in
man and nature is as strong and recurrent as the conserving,
erotic element? Or can our delight in destruction be channeled
into other activities than the traditional one of warfare ? We
are not far advanced on the way to these answers. We do not

destruction, know whether a peaceful society can be made attractive
from fear enough to wean men away from the appeals of battle. Today

we are seeking to make war so horrible that men will be
no longer frightened away from it. But this is hardly likely to be more

r pleasure, fruitful in the future than it has been in the past. More pro-
at ilie pm· ductive will certainly be our efforts to eliminate the social,

57



THE WARRIORS

economic, and political injustices that are always the immedi­
ate occasion of hostilities. Even then, we shall be confronted

with the spiritual emptiness and inner hunger that impel many
men toward combat. Our society has not begun to wrestle with
this problem of how to provide fulfillment to human life, to
which war is so often an illusory path.
The weather has been unspeakably bad also, and what with the
dawning realization that the war may continue through the winter,
it has been sufficient to lower my previous high spirits. Perhaps
"high spirits" is not the proper term for the nervous excitement
and tension of this war front. I experience so much as in a dream
or as on a stage, and at times I can step aside, as one does in a
dream, and say: Is this really I? "Sad and laughable and strange"
is the best combination of adjectives to describe these twilight
days of our old world-the words that Plato used to describe his
great myth at the end of The Republic. I would say, first strange,
then sad, then laughable-but the laugh is not the same as the
laugh of one in love when his beloved has delighted him with
some idiosyncrasy of love. It is the laugh of the fallen angels
who have renounced heaven but find hell hard to endure. (War
journal, October 2, 1944)

THl

In I

58



THREE

IlMtwilnlM
O!ghl�winrerl

I '/s, PerM�1
OU$ excitemern

'QJinaaream
one does ina

Ie and slran�e"
these Iwili��

IodescriDe�
)', first slran�11
lesamed

�d nim wi�

la�n an�eu
endure, (War

LOVE:

WAR'S

ALLY

AND FOE

... the Greeks were wise men when they mated the god of war
with the goddess Aphrodite. The soldier must not only kill, he
must give birth to new warriors. (A letter to a friend, August 28,
1944, from southern Franee)

In my journal I find no description of a cave in one of Italy's
most despoiled towns where the whole population was forced
to spend several days while the front passed. Why I did not
record an incident that happened to me there, I do not know,
possibly because I thought it incomprehensible. On the chance
that German deserters or Fascist partisans might be concealed
among the civilian populace, I decided to inspect this cave.
The exploration was the nearest thing to a journey in Dante's
Inferno that I was to know in the war. Each family group had

59



THE WARRIORS

tried to establish a tiny living space in the dank, unlighted get
dungeon where one had constantly to stoop to avoid the dirt an�
roof. The only light came from various small fires and the
occasional candles of those families who had had the foresight
to bring a few provisions with them. Because there was no th
ventilation, no water, no toilet facilities, the stench was nearly
unendurable.

I stumbled and groped my way forward, trying to avoid
stepping on bodies, afraid I would faint from lack of oxygen.
Acrid smoke burned my eyes and made it difficult to avoid
collision with hundreds lying, sitting, or crouching about on all
sides. Children were screaming, old men and women coughing in
or moaning, while others tried to prepare some gruel over
smoking coals. Far back in the cave, which seemed never-end- De
ing, I struck my head against the roof and slipped to my knees.
My hand, thrown out to steady me, touched not the filthy floor
but the fingers and palm of a woman's hand, quickly raised to
prevent my falling on her. In the darkness I could discern only aut
a half-recumbent form directly beneath me. Mumbling an 10 '
apology I hastily withdrew my hand, but not before I felt a 10J
responsive clasp from hers, unmistakably amorous. �n

At the entrance and in the fresh air at last, I held my split- a v
ting head in my hands and slowly recovered from the foulness. ilio
But to understand how anyone in this situation could possibly �ei
feel desire was completely beyond me. In the perspective of ina
memory, however, this incident may well be taken as symboli- mJ
cal of the curious affinities between love and war. I

There is a familiar Greek myth about the goddess of love, ree
Aphrodite, becoming the mistress of Ares, god of war, whose in
youth and passion captured her heart, though she was the De:
bride of Hephaestos, who forged the weapons and armor of an
the gods. The two of them spent many sweet, illicit hours to- F(

60



, unligbtea
void the dirt
flres and ili!

the ioresi�nl
there was Dij

nch was near!)

'omen COU��!
.

me gruel om
mea never���
d !omrh�

o ilie fililir �oo,
qillchlr raisearo

aOiscerno�
e. �fumlJ�� �

before I fdtl

Love: War's Ally and Foe

gether, and one of their children was the beautiful Harmonia,
another the ever-youthful Eros. This liaison between love and
war, familiar early in Western history, might occasion more
wonder and reflection than it usually does. How can it be that
these two, outwardly so unlike, have any attraction for each
other at all? What is the source of this affinity? Is the attrac­
tion really an adulterous one, as in the myth, or is it more
legitimate than the early Greeks wanted to believe? How
durable can we expect this liaison to be between love and war?

Questions like these arise almost spontaneously when I begin
to reflect on modern enactments of the Aphrodite-Ares story
in World War II .

Anyone entering military service for the first time can only
be astonished by soldiers' concentration upon the subject of
women and, more especially, upon the sexual act. The most
common word in the mouths of American soldiers has been
the vulgar expression for sexual intercourse. This word does
duty as adjective, adverb, verb, noun, and in any other
form it can possibly be used, however inappropriate or ridicu­
lous in application. Many soldiers seem hardly able to utter a
sentence without using it at least once. Apparently they derive
a vague satisfaction by invoking the word itself, habitual and
thoughtless as its employment becomes. It must serve to recall
fleeting memories or fond desires. At all events, its overuse
indicates clearly a predominant interest for nearly all military
men in wartime.

If we are honest, most of us who were civilian soldiers in
recent wars will confess that we spent incomparably more time
in the service of Eros during our military careers than ever
before or again in our lives. When we were in uniform almost
any girl who was faintly attractive had an erotic appeal for us.
For their part, millions of women find a strong sexual attrac-

61



THE WARRIORS

tion in the military uniform, particularly in time of war. This
fact is as inexplicable as it is notorious. Many a girl who had
hitherto led a casual and superficial existence within a pro­
tective family circle has been suddenly overwhelmed by in­
tense passion for a soldier met by chance on the street or at
a dance for servicemen. It seems that the very atmosphere of
large cities in wartime breathes the enticements of physical
love. Not only are inhibitions on sexual expression lowered,
but there exists a much more passionate interest of the sexes
in each other than is the case in peacetime. Men and women
normally absorbed by other concerns find themselves caught
up in the whirlpool of erotic love, which is the preoccupation
of the day. In wartime marriages multiply and the birth rate
increases. We can safely assume that the number of love
affairs, if they could be reduced to statistics, would show an
even greater rate of expansion.

I find it hard to accept the usual sociological and psycho­
logical explanations of this phenomenon, though they must be
true in part. Sociologists fasten upon the uprooting character
of war experience. War always signifies an artificial separation
of the sexes or, at best, a maldistribution. The soldier is torn
loose from his home moorings and community context, and
exposed to worry, threats, isolation, and loneliness. In an un­
friendly male environment he yearns for the protective, or­
deriy existence that is symbolized by women and home. Pre­
occupation with sex becomes a form of compensation for what
he has lost; it is an expression of his maladjustment. A healthy
interest in sex is likely only when the individual moves in his
own social sphere. Undoubtedly, a great deal of wartime love
can be ascribed in part to the loss of our proper environment.
What is not explained, however, is why women whose external
lives have not been greatly deranged by war are equally sub-

62

je�
vo,

per
rna

ao
in

pie
on



eroflOff
oula snow an

ana psrcn�
iliey must D�

Love: War".s Ally and Foe

ject to love's fever. Evidently other and deeper forces are in­
volved as well.

Biological psychologists are fond of reminding us that
civilized controls over sex impulses impose a severe strain
on the psyche. War offers us an opportunity to return to na­
ture and to look upon every member of the opposite sex as a
possible conquest, to be wooed or forced. For such a view,
Ares and Aphrodite are kindred gods who need and under­
stand each other. Both are under the control, however, of some
larger evolutionary principle, usually called the struggle for
existence or the will to live. Because war poses a special threat
to the survival of the species, this principle calls up in the
individual members unconscious but powerful counterforces.
We reproduce our kind more rapidly because we are also en­
gaged in destroying other members of the species. As indi­
viduals we have no freedom to do otherwise, since the needs
of the species are imperious. As one of nature's numerous
progeny, we are subject to the same laws as the rest.

Love in wartime does have a compulsiveness about it that
peacetime seldom knows. It falls upon us "like a mountain
wind upon an oak, shaking us leaf and bough," in the striking
simile of the poet Sappho. It overleaps national boundaries
and overcomes obstacles that at other times might appear in­
superable. Nevertheless, the biological basis of this love is
transformed by its human qualities and becomes something
other than the urge to reproduce. The determinism we ex­
perience in love stems not alone from nature, but is an inti­
mate determinism arising out of our gift of freedom. There is
doubtless truth in the naturalistic claim that forces are at work
in war and love that we rarely make conscious and never com­
pletely understand. But these forces are not merely biological;
on the contrary, they are distinctively human as well.

63



THE WARRIORS

Love has many levels, and we use the same word to cover
a multitude of relationships between two human beings, re­
lationships that are different but not separable from each
other. Even erotic love between men and women where sexual
need appears to be the foundation of the relationship has, as
everyone knows, a thousand nuances. Reflection upon war
experience in relation to love has convinced me of this, at
least, that the liaison between the gods of love and of war
rests at some levels upon the attraction of opposites, at others
upon their essential kinship. Neither Ares nor Aphrodite is a
simple or a simple-minded god, and their union is no easy
thing to comprehend. Of the various kinds of love that de­
termine men at war, which are called forth by and are kin to
war and which, opposed to destruction and death, may become
the instruments of peace?

I have observed three distinct kinds of love operating dur­
ing war. They are erotic love between the sexes, preserva­
tive love, which is independent of sex distinctions, and the love
called friendship. These loves are, of course, not unknown to
peace. But in times of strife they are sometimes more clearly
defined, and the ornamentations in which love abounds are
more likely to be stripped away . War has its own conventions,
to be sure, and it quickly camouflages true relations and origi­
nal impulses among human creatures. Yet there are moments
of lucidity, even terrible clarity, which can be enlightening
when we succeed in re-creating them in memory without dis­
tortion.

For many soldiers of World War II, love between the sexes
appeared to be nothing else than an outlet in the purely physi­
cal sense, which physiologists of love are fond of describing.
There was an unmistakable similarity in it to eating and drink-

64

seel

ili'
won

her

men

love
II

call
sold
anrn
and

oruy
late
dem
thln
lies
of
oe s
atiJ
for
The

�
atec

appl
coul
IDS'



'd to cover

beings, reo
from eac�

1here sexuru
�hip has, ij
n upon W�
e of fu�,!!

and of W�
ites, at olli��
phrodite � i
n � no e8!J
love iliat a�
a areKin!�

unknown !�
more c1earlJ
ahoun� are
conventiolll,

os ana ori�'
re momenb

eDlightenin�
wiiliou! ru.

n the seXe3

ely physi,
escribin�1
d drink'

Love: War'$ AUy and Foe

ing, a devouring of the woman as object. Even the appetite
seemed to recur with the same regularity as do hunger and
thirst. To these soldiers it did not much matter who the
woman was they used to satisfy themselves. Their claims on
her were only on her external features, so that prostitutes gave
such soldiers as much as any other girl could, and were usu­
ally much more in accord with military needs. It is not at all
surprising that many army commanders have over the cen­
turies sought to organize love by providing legal brothels for
soldiers. From a narrow military standpoint, these establish­
ments have always appeared to limit the dangers of physical
love and insure efficiency of soldiering.

It is not easy to grasp the full coarseness of this gross physi­
cal love. Those who are repelled by the descriptions of it some
soldiers like to give are accustomed to class it as bestial and
animalistic without reflecting upon it further. In the memories
and imaginations of these soldiers, women were reduced not
only to objects, but to sexual organs which they could manipu­
late to their complete satisfaction. There was little or no ten­
derness in their passion, and gentleness in its expression was a
thing unknown. The sexual need of these soldiers appeared to
lie so near the surface as to be associated with only one part
of their being. To put it more exactly, the need appeared to
be separable as a passion that shook them from without and
at intervals only. Such soldiers could not be called sensualists,
for they knew little about the real pleasures of physical love.
Their passion was too external and superficial for that.

For a time during the war in France, I was closely associ­
ated with an officer to whom love was purely an external
appetite. His favorite expression was that he was a man who
could not sleep alone. In fact, he usually found a girl to share
his bed, and frequently several different girls in the course of

65



THE WARRIORS

a week. Yet it was apparent to those of us who knew him
well

that these relationships gave momentary satisfaction only.
Despite his highly developed capacity for physical love, he
knew extremely little about making the act more pleasurable
for himself. It would never have occurred to him to cultivate

affection for some of his many girls as a way of increasing his

pleasure. So far as I could tell, he derived his greatest satis­
faction from recounting his conquests to any of us who would

listen. The girls he conquered sustained his ego and per­
suaded him that he was more than adequate as a lover.

I do not need to furnish any further description of this

level of erotic love. Any veteran who reads these lines will
have a thousand memories of it, personal or vicarious. Even
those who escaped much contact with such love know well

enough its appeal and realize that we are not separated from
it by any absolute barrier. Fastidiousness, moral restraint, or
the habit of treating the opposite sex as human beings may
prohibit sympathy for soldiers such as these. But there is enough
of the rapist in every man to give him insight into the grossest
manifestations of sexual passion. Hence it is presumptuous
for any of us to scorn the practitioners of this lowest kind of

passion as beings with whom we have no kinship.
Surely this kind of love is intimately associated with the

impersonal violence of war. Ares and Aphrodite here attract
one another as true mates. Copulation under such circum­
stances is an act of aggression; the girl is the victim and her

conquest the victor's triumph. Preliminary resistance on her

part always increases his satisfaction, since victory is more

intoxicating the harder the winning may be. It is not without

significance that the language of physical love and the lan­

guage of battle have a large correspondence, and the phrase
"the war of the sexes" can be rich in connotation. Love like

66

this
of t1

whoI
T

selve

heinl
and
har&
silile
form
as a

does
man

crea

par
who

des�

rapl
lerr

cam

on
or
ch



whim weU
ction onlJ,
�allove, h�
pleasurabl�

, to cultivare
ncreasin� �

eatest sat�
who wolli�

ratea fr�m

ance on nt!

ory is mort

not '�1tnollt

nd the lan,

the phrase
, Love likt

Love : War's Ally and Foe

this can be as cruel as battle, because it arises from one part
of the human being only, a part that is sundered from the
whole.

That we can respond with only one aspect of our total
selves is the frightening quality of our human life. Far from
being weaker, this abstract response is usually more virulent
and violent than response by the whole person. It seems
hardly necessary to remark that such degradation is not pos­
sible for other than the human species. The animal cannot trans­
form his mate into an object because it does not regard itself
as a subject. A human being who thus deserts his humanity
does not become like an animal, but, in the expressive Ger­
man term, an Untier (an "unanimal"), in an exact sense, a
creature without parallel in nature. The conquest of the sexual
partner thus becomes very like the conquest of the enemy,
who has forfeited any right to human status or equality. I
described this experience in my journal one day:

Stories are constantly brought to us of the Moroccan soldiers
raping women and children, robbing and pillaging, and generally
terrorizing the Italians. Just an hour ago, a group of Italians
came to the PW cage, where I am working, with fearful stories
of how their small daughters are taken to the woods and violated
by these French Moroccan soldiers. I spoke to the MP officer in
charge about it. He said, "There is nothing we can do. The com­
plaints have been taken to the French General in charge, who
merely laughed and said, 'This is war.' We cannot control these
soldiers or convince them that the Italians are not their enemies
when a year or two ago the Italians were doing the same thing in
Africa." . . . The incident made me wonder about the idea 0/
kindness in culture, made me remember how the Greeks, highly
cultured Athenians, were heartlessly cruel to their enemies, yet
preserved their own humanity.... Perhaps humanitarianism
needs to be reconsidered and re-evaluated. An interesting study

67



THE WARRIORS

would be the growth 0/ the idea 0/ humanitarianism and, related
to it, the idea 0/ sadism. Because sadism is an antithesis 0/ every­
thing humanitarianism signifies, it should be correlated with it.

the
tion

Tl
dem
factil
coan

De n
attra

pere
erly
affec

huml
sensl

ques
he rl

huml
or t

men

ture!

shlll
F

opp�
viol{

imp]
refin

It would be folly, I believe, to minimize the similarity be­
tween war and this gross form of love. Observation of others

and being honest about our own sensations must convince us
that sexual passion in isolation and the lust for battle are
closely akin. Such sexual passion and war have been married
from the beginning, and there is no cause to speak of an
illicit relationship. To be sure, the sexual partner is not actu­
ally destroyed in the encounter, merely overthrown. And the
psychological aftereffects of sexual lust are different from those
of battle lusts. These differences, however, do not alter the
fact that the passions have a common source and affect their
victims in the same way while they are in their grip. We
should not forget, either, that sometimes the consequences are
not so different, after all. Sexual lust often leads to murder,
and in wartime, particularly, the same person often suffers
rape and murder. Both reveal man as a berserker, outside of
his humanity, a dangerous beast of prey.

There is another level of love in which Ares and Aphrodite
are at one in sympathy, but here the specifically human ele­
ment is present. I refer to the thoroughgoing sensualist. Many
a soldier has learned all the physiological and psychological
delights of erotic love while remaining blind to its higher
satisfactions. For such a soldier, love is an appetite, closely
associated in fact with eating and drinking, but far superior
to them, since it yields both a more pervasive and intense
kind of pleasure. Eating and drinking become for him pre­
liminary stages; they are put in the service of his supreme
earthly bliss. His dreams are of romantic conquests in which

68



and, re���
sis of everr'
[lted with it

imilarity n�
ion of oilien

convince w
or battle an
been marri�

"peaK 01 �

sequenc�an
� to mUI�erl

ohen su�en

er, ou�i�e �l

nG Apnroilite
}' numan ele,

uallit.M�,
,cnolo@�ru

o i� hl�n�
tite,clo!tl,

far su�ri�r
and inte�
r him pr�
,

supreme
in wDicn

Love: War's AUy and Foe

the final act of physical release is preceded by lengthy seduc­
tion byplay.

Though selfish to the core, the sensualist possesses real ten­
derness in his love-making, and he strives for his girl's satis­
faction as the most delightful part of his own. Unlike the
coarser soldier, whom he scorns, he is selective. His girls must
be refined enough to conceal and help him cover up the less
attractive aspects of physical passion. His promiscuity is tem­
pered by the recognition that a love partner can only be prop­
erly enjoyed when time is given to develop tenderness and
affection on both sides. He is not inclined to overlook her

humanity, though that is not an end for him but a means. A
sensualist looks at every attractive woman as a possible con­
quest. She is for him of interest solely because of her sex. And
he regards himself as a male before he thinks of himself as a
human being. In memory he luxuriates in comparisons of this
or that ladylove with others, recalling the distinctive refine­
ments of his various loves. Girls are for him gorgeous crea­

tures, instruments on which he strives to play with infinite
skill and patience.

For the sensualist as soldier, war is not only a convenient
opportunity for new and wider fields of erotic conquest; the
violence associated with it corresponds to something deeply
implanted in his nature. He can be, and often is, the most
refined sadist in dealing with helpless enemy soldiers. He is
capable of fierce anger and is likely to be the most unrelenting
exponent of brute force in solving all problems of war. The
surprising thing about the sensualistic soldier is that his erotic
experiences have no softening effect on his personality. If
anything, they appear to harden him. The tenderness he dis­
plays toward his girl of the moment turns to harshness and
cruelty toward men under his control or toward the captured

69



THE WARRIORS

enemy. I can only conclude that for the sensualist, as for his
coarser brother, love signifies a devouring of the object and
not a union with the subject. The beauty of loving is for him
an outer cloak only; inwardly he is either empty or rapacious.
Moreover, he is essentially uncontrollable by reason; his nature
is in the service of passion exclusively.

The deities of love and war have never given birth to more
dangerous offspring than these complete sensualists. Mytho­
logically, they are the children of Anteros (Passion), who was
also a son of the union of Ares and Aphrodite. These soldiers
make war with the same participation of their whole being as
they make love. The absence of external coarseness and ob­
scenity in them is a poor compensation for the increased
possibilities of degradation and genuine wickedness they dis­
play. Sensualists usually have complex natures, and frequently
intelligent ones as well. Since they are given over to passions
of love and violence, they live in war's element more internally
secure than anyone else. It is as though they find in the union
of love and war the only fulfillment of which they are capable.
Unlike the simpler soldier already described, whose sexual
needs appear relatively external and separable from the rest
of him, the sensualists are integral; they are whole men in
the expression of their passions. Hence they can more easily
step over the line to become killers and to delight in destruc­
tion for its own sake than any other kind of soldier . Fewer
inhibitions restrain them and their interests are usually nar­
row, being concentrated on conquest, erotic or martial.

But, a skeptical reader may ask, are there such soldiers in
reality or is this not an abstraction you are depicting? I con­
fess that I have never known a complete sensualist before or
since my army days and so can understand a reader's doubts.
Perhaps it is because I have moved in more restricted circles,

as n

time
and
mero

unit,
testiJ

Fe

cont

attra

fort
into

need
ment

me

KnO

prese
and)

quali
Phys
they

In
inde�
and I
CUInS

to co

not,
uttle
comr

pearl
and I

speci

70



Love: War's Ally and Foe

as most of us do in civilian life. Sensualists thrive in peace­
time, no doubt, but their nature of necessity is more concealed
and their desires disguised by interests of business and com­
merce. But that undisguised sensualists exist in every combat
unit, nearly every former soldier with any perception can
testify.

n birth to m��
"Uallsts, M�
··ion), wnow�
e, These �olrul�

: 'ftoole Dein�!
sen� ana ��

For other soldiers at war, the erotic appeal is evidently in
contrast with the ugly realities of combat. Ares and Aphrodite
attract as opposites and not as soul mates. Such soldiers long
for the gentleness and affection that only women can bring
into the very male character of martial existence. Physical
need might well be a basis of this love, and sensuous excite­
ment its very breath, but its sweetness and beauty make it
memorable and worthy. A soldier who feels this may not
know what it is that stirs him so profoundly about a girl's
presence, but he surmises dimly that it is her presence itself
and not merely her body that moves him. It is the feminine
quality of being that he unconsciously wants to fulfill him.
Physical and spiritual elements are so fused in his desire that
they are indistinguishable.

In the battle areas of World War II, there was something
indescribably poignant about many such love liaisons. Plain
and commonplace as the women might be under normal cir­
cumstances, they appeared as angels of beauty and tenderness
to combat soldiers starved for these qualities. More often than
not, the soldier and his newly found sweetheart understood
little or nothing of each other's language. But the inability to
communicate and the strangeness of different customs ap­
peared to heighten the joy of discovery for them. The brevity
and often stolen character of their love gave every incident a

special imprint on the memory. Those tingling guarded mem-

eU5uallrn!r'
r martial,

ucn solaimm
icting� I COfr

alist before or

ader's aOuD�
ictea circl�,

71



THE WARRIORS

ories of tenderness and beauty were frequently sufficient to

preserve the courage of the soldier and strengthen him for

the return to battle. To have a yielding, caressing girl in his
arms after hideous or nondescript days and nights in battle
was to have impossibly much when he had got used to so little.

Here the physical relationship was frequently veiled by an

all-encompassing tenderness, and came to seem, in their need

of each other, an incident only. Almost of necessity there was
much illusion in this love. The soldier who returned after the

war to marry his sweetheart of a night or two often found
heartache and disillusion, as the statistics of such marriages
reveal, for the attraction on both sides was too obviously a

product of the immediate situation and the war. Another
soldier or another girl under similar conditions might have
satisfied as well the need for affection and physical love. For
the soldier who did not return, his memories remain unsullied

and inextinguishable.
A love like this has for relatively uncorrupted natures a

wonderfully beneficent effect as a counterpoise to the imper­
sonal slaughter around them. Transient though it may be, and
much less individual than either the soldier or his girl will

admit, their love has the power to conserve the precious

qualities of their being. These qualities are the most widely
shared and most generally human that our species knows.
For men and women who are cast about in time and space by
the fortunes of war, no other response is left than to find occa­

sionalloves and to pour into them all their longing for beauty
and gentleness and charm. Moralists should not quarrel about
the nonspecific character of this love; hence its transience and
the illusions it cherishes. Of all wartime loves, it is likely,
possibly, to be most moral in its effects. Without loves like

72

these

neve

series
how 6

/amilJ
spea

A

Englb
and I

after
sel/·o
sciou
awa

lher
frig�
bws
hole

A
!iuU
bee!
and
can

lhe
j

at

Sir

w

1M
m

cu

pe



ufficient t�
en him for
g �rl in hij
hts in baw�
d to so uttlfl
veiled Dr �
in theirn�
:ity There w&

ed alter�
o olten louM

Love : War's Ally and Foe

these, the human spirit would be much slower in recuperating
from the psychical wounds of conflict. Indeed, many would
never recover at all.

. . . and because you are a good friend I can risk telling you
of a wonderful "femme fatale" in my recent experience. By a
series of chance circumstances we were thrown together, why and
how and wherefore I hardly know. The girl comes from a good
family, has everything in the world, and is, quite objectively
speaking, enchantingly beautiful.

A hundred times she said to me in her quaint and hesitant
English: "I am happy," or in her liquid French: "Je suis content,"
and I laughed each time like a man whose eyes have been opened
after years of darkness. After a thousand forced, sardonic, or
self-conscious laughs, there is the laugh of pure joy, of uncon­
scious, uninhibited delight in beauty and freedom. "Where hushed
awakenings are dear ...

" In the night a German plane came over,
there was flak, she stirred in my arms, awoke, and was a little
frightened, crept closer in my arms, whispered dear words. I
blessed the plane and could not have been frightened had the
hotel shaken under bombs.

And because you must laugh at me and at this experience a
little, I shall tell you that since knowing her my lips and ears have
been opened in French and I can now understand the language
and make myself understood in it! It is amazing what two nights
can do when one has to make oneself understood. She would say
the same about English.

Shall I tell you why I believe such an experience is given to me
at such a time as this? At this you must not laugh. To give me
strength and courage to bear the present and the near future,
when we enter Germany and must endure horrible things. 1 think
these events are heaven-directed and instilled with purpose and

meaning. I shall henceforth be less willing in difficult times "to
curse God and die," a little more certain that I have something to
perform in the world. As life becomes more disordered and a
waste over here, and there are only memories to sustain us, how

73



THE WARRIORS

important it is to have pure memories, strong, sweet, eternal
memories.

Still other soldiers find in war erotic love that goes deeper
than the appeals of tenderness and beauty, love that fills them
completely and is painfully specific and individual, painfully,
because such love is exposed to the arbitrariness of bullets and
bombs in a cruel way and painfully, too, because this love is
no respecter of persons and frequently chooses archenemies as
its unhappy principals. How often in recent wars has the
tragedy of Romeo and Juliet been re-enacted, without benefit
of Shakespeare's lyric music to moderate the agony! To the
lovers, their love appears to be independent of and unrelated
to the war and all its madness. Their love is written in the stars
and not in the march orders and manipulations of a military
headquarters. They would have met and found each other
had the war never been. If in fact their attachment is not so
dissevered from the abysses of war as they think, the prin­
cipals are quite certain that its issue is all that really matters.
Their passionate recognition that they belong together causes
them to disregard every claim to their allegiance that con­
flicts with their love. Loyalty to country and ccmrades, to
family and to established habits of life, cannot withstand the
demands and claims of such a relationship.

In France in 1944, as our forces liberated town after town
from the Germans, many of us were unwilling spectators of
unforgettable scenes. The French Resistance forces insisted on
a public shaving of the heads of those girls who had had
German lovers during the Occupation. This gruesome cere­
mony was commonly performed on a platform in the public
square, and was attended by a numerous, sometimes mocking,
crowd. A good number of the girls were evidently prostitutes,
and their shearing was a spectacle only, unpleasant for an

74

outs

and,
grou
been
au

uneal

betra
suma

the n
not (

men

publ!
did,

light
war,

credl
of t�
virt
and

puni
a gil
rega
mus

intel
sam

fort
real
ins
in!
sufi

wi�



et, eternal

oes deeper
.t fills them
I, painfullJ,
bune� ana
tbis lovell
benemie� �
ars nas lli�
iliout oeneol
onr� To lli�
d unrelal�a

n in Ine slar!
I amililary
eacn Olntl

nt is nolM
. tne �rin.

all! malle�,
elner caU!e1
eilialcon,

cmrades,lo
'Ihsland In�

aflerlown
ectatorsoi
insisled on

o haa haG
orne cere'

the pUDlic
rnockin�,

rostitules,
t for an

Love: War's Ally and Foe

outsider to behold, satisfying for the French who had lived
and suffered under the threat of being informed upon as under­
ground workers by girls like these. But where the girl had
been genuinely in love with her foreign soldier, the scene took
on an uncanny character, producing in many of us a deep
unease. I thought that French faces in the crowd of onlookers
betrayed all the contradictions implicit in the drama. Pre­
sumably, the French, better than other nations, understood
the nature of love and realized that national boundaries can­
not contain or restrain it. They recognized that their young
men of the Resistance were punishing, by attempting to shame
publicly, girls who could not have done other than what they
did. As such, this was an act of injustice, and not to be taken
lightly by Frenchmen, even though commonplace enough in
war. But as passionate political partisans they found it in­
credible that a truly French girl could have traffic with one
of the hated enemy. A love that set all national and familial
virtues at naught, a love that defied the claims of fatherland
and natural loyalties must be monstrous and deserving of the
punishment being meted out. No matter how erect and proud
a girl might stand on the platform before her tormentors, and
regardless of her reputed good character in other ways, she
must conceal within her being some evil stain. Thus I chose to
interpret the strange and baffled expressions on the faces of
some of the quieter and more sensitive bystanders.

It is hard for anyone reading about these events, in a com­
fortable armchair far removed in time and space from their

reality, to experience any of the desolation of spirit they
inspired in some of us. Evil was not triumphing over good
in the usual sense, for the FFI youths and their families had
suffered cruelly from this enemy whom they felt to be at war
with all mankind. In most cases, the girl herself did not ap-

75



THE WARRIORS

see

chu
worl
rnor

ilie
heri

�

prove of either the German nation or its policies in France.
She felt herself to he a passionate defender of French ideals
and French democracy. But . . . her lover was different. He
was not one of the hated enemy, though he wore their uniform,
spoke their language, and was forced to obey their commands.
His soul was not foreign; it was free of all contagion by the
alien and hostile, for it belonged to her completely. She could
look out upon her townspeople and persecutors with a certain
pity, not unmixed with scorn, because only she knew what a
gulf separated her from them. The shudder that went through
me at such sights was called forth by a premonition that the
punishment was not only unjust, but also unholy. This love
of hers was not only uncontrollable, it was a blessing, and to
punish one of the principals was to play, unwittingly or not, a
satanic role.

There was, of course, nothing specifically French about
manifestations like this. Later, many of us were to see in

Germany that a girl could love an Allied soldier who was
fighting and killing her brothers or father. And the soldier
could love her in return and genuinely hate her people. Sepa­
rated and estranged from everyone but each other, these
lovers felt secure and morally impregnable, though their fates
might tomorrow become unbearably hard. Other lands must
also have witnessed similar scenes in recent wars. In fact, they
must have happened in most wars in Western history, if war
literature can be trusted. Many happy marriages have been
consummated between former enemies where the husband has

heen the slayer of his wife's closest relatives. The theme sounds
primitive and archaic enough, something from the early sagas,
but it is no doubt as contemporary as the war raging some­
where today.

Few of us can comprehend the mystery of this love. We

this
suc�
rno

Hen
fulfi
of s

con)

ing
1

gail
the

dep
sun

joy'
act

an

fat
Co

fa
be

76

Cal



in Franc�,
rench idea�
uifferent. H!
heir uniform
ir commanw,
ta�on brllit
ely. She c���
with a cfrta�
e hew wnali

Vien! tnr�u�
c'lonilid

olf' This I�w
bl"lng, ana I�

:�glr or n�I,!

e early sa�8l,
raging som�'

's love, WI

Love: WaT's AUy and Foe

see Ares and Aphrodite mated and so well mated that their
child might well be named Harmonia. At the same time the
world lies in ruins around them, not only physically but
morally, too, for their union tears apart the firmest beliefs in
the worth of family, nation, and the whole complex of in­
herited tradition.

Yet we may well ask whether this love of a man and a
woman for each other in which both have their whole being
is really a mating of love and war. Is not war in this case an
absurd accompaniment only? What can war and tragedy give
this love that it would not have in time of peace? Certainly
such love takes place in peace and among fellow countrymen
more commonly than among members of opposed nations.
Hence it does not require perverse outer circumstances for its
fulfillment. Nevertheless, the presence of danger and the threat
of separation do add something in the way of perfection or
completeness, perhaps the realization of good fortune in hav­
ing found the true love.

Too many of us as yet are so constituted that we cannot

gain under peaceful skies an awareness of our own nature and
the possibility of its union with another. When death and
deprivation lurk near at hand, and only then, can many of us
summon the necessary seriousness and wisdom, the necessary
joy, to recognize love's true form. Genuine love can hardly
actualize itself in Utopia, and certainly cannot there produce
an awareness of its nature. The infinite uncertainty of outer
fate is required, I fear, for profounder lovers to become fully
conscious of inner certainty. We express this often in the
familiar phrase: Lovers must know heartbreak in their love
before it is secure.

The most necessary insight, however, that such tragic love
can bring to participants and observers alike is that it has its

77



THE WARRIORS

being beyond the physiological and psychological, that it is
indeed a cosmic force. When we see lovers assert the unity of
their being in the face of desolation and destruction, a being
in the midst of, but also above, conflict, we are forced to

acknowledge the transcendent character of love. The lovers

exemplify it, they do not create it; they are caught up in it
rather than possess it. Love's very nature is to be ecstatic, to
draw single units out of themselves and into a higher unity.
Its roots are in the widest reaches of being itself, uniting the
human entity to the rest of creation. When we confront a love
of this tragic kind, we are nearly forced to say, foolishly wise:
This is the way the world is. Though we may forget tomorrow
what it teaches us today, we are dimly aware that other dimen­
sions of reality exist than are disclosed to everyday moods.

That such love is inexorably wedded to war, we may justly
doubt, but that war has often enabled lovers to understand the
true fount and origin of their love is also beyond dispute. It
is, of all the forms of erotic love, the least wedded to violence.

Clearly, the reason is that it is the most integral, uniting, as it
does, not only two individuals to each other, but two indi­
viduals to the wider realms of being. That even this does not
always bring them peace is an indication that the world sub­
stance itself, whatever it may be, is not harmonious, complete,
or single. True lovers hate war with all their heart, since it
demonstrates too well that others have not found the secret of

life that they know. But perhaps even they may sometimes
admit that they learned the secret only when suspended over
the abyss of death. We human beings are not very creative,
otherwise we should have discovered other extreme situations

that could serve better than war to teach us what we need to

know, and without war's loss and unintelligibility.
It is my belief that there is no higher form of love than this

total
other
man

ship, ·
more

canna

ing it
nature

to val
towhl
�urely'
ner

time a

relate
It mil
�erve

Irom

lovel

nest

are

clear

�erve

aD�

help
resc/
If

cha
di

sol

78



1, that it u
the unity 01
tion, a hein!
are forcen �
e. The lov!n
aught up inl
be ecstatlc, �

a hi�eruni�,
ti, unitin� �
conhontalol1

I.fool�hlr�:
forgettomorroi

iliat oilier ilim!!,
.-aaymoo�,

,

�'emarj�
unaelStan��

I uniting,&l
I but two inm,

lOllS, com�l�tl,
heart, sinceil
Q the secret 01

ay somet��

spended OVII
ery creativ�,
e gituatioru

t we Deed to

Love: War's Ally and Foe

total involvement of a man and a woman in each other. No
other kind can grant us deeper glimpses into the nature of
man or the world he inhabits. Christian love or Greek friend­

ship, so often declared superior, are simply different, but not
more limitless or rewarding. That this is a faith for which I
cannot adduce evidence, I freely confess. My reason for hold­
ing it is simply the belief that no love has a deeper base in
nature or, perhaps, a higher reach in the spirit. Its blindness
to values that other loves know how to cherish is a limitation
to which all forces in human life are subject. The Greeks were
surely wise to deify Aphrodite and to make Eros a child of
her union with Ares.

The threat to life and limb and to all man-created things in
time of war calls up in some men a sentiment of love not closely
related to the erotic, but extending beyond the human sphere.
It might best be designated as an impersonal passion to pre­
serve and succor that which is threatened, or to hold back
from annihilation as much life and material as possible. This
love is protective and maternal in kind. Its nature is perhaps
best expressed in the old English word "concern." What men
are concerned about, as the derivation of the word makes
clear, they are implicated in and related to. The urge to pre­
serve from destruction sometimes takes on comical and even

absurd aspects. But its presence is deeply reassuring, for it
helps to humanize partly the most ferocious battles and to
rescue many spirits for the peace that always follows combat.
If we do not find it in many men as a dominant motive of

character, I think love as concern is widely distributed, and is
discoverable frequently in the least likely prospects. Yes,
soldier-killers, intent upon the inverted creativeness of destruc-

79



THE WARRIORS

tion, have been known to show more than traces of such love
in moments and on occasion.

What is it that men are concerned to preserve and to care
for in battle? The most obvious answer is self-preservation,
taking care of their own lives. This is true in a different sense
from the common biological teaching of self-preservation as a
basic instinct that men share with other animals. It is also
true in a different sense from the egoistic psychology that
traces all motivation to self-interest. He who has seen men
throwaway their lives in battle when caught up in communal
passion or expose themselves recklessly and carelessly to mortal
danger will be cured forever of such easy interpretations of
human motivation. Nothing is clearer than that men can act
contrary to the alleged basic instinct of self-preservation and
against all motives of self-interest and egoism. Were it not so,
the history of warfare in our civilization would be completely
different from what it has been.

Nevertheless, self-preservation is a dependable and per­
vasive feature of human existence in a deeper sense than ego­
istic theories suppose. The philosopher Spinoza called it the
striving to persevere in our own being, and the phrase is exact.
Though striving to persevere in our own being is not absolute
(for men may deliberately choose suicide) and not merely
biological selfishness (since men are capable of dying for
others), it is a power that lies both in and beyond the con­
scious, rational life. Many a soldier has been surprised to
discover the desire to continue in being as a final hold and
support, after superhuman exertion and mental strain had
robbed him of conscious will, and any religious faith he may
have possessed had ceased to be meaningful. The literature of
war is full of the accounts of armies, beaten and bled, starved
and weakened, yet tenaciously staying alive and rescuing a

rem

anc

clas.
maj
feats
ashe

lovel
nak
Pos

prot�
often

wea�
ana
10 h)
Ofte)

menj
po
�ioru

iliey
ilie
enec
1

ilie
la

nan
n.

�
he

DOl
sev

llil
80



·preservation
•

I

lfierent se�
rvation �!

also It � a�
:ycnolo� ilial
nas seen m�n

p in comrnun�
1eil1rlomor!8l
erprelalions 01

hrase �eml.
,Dol �solul�
a Dol mmlr
of aring for
ODa Ine COD'

surprisea 10
al holO aD�
strain n��

faiili he mar
literalureo!
led, starvea
rescuing a

Love: WaT's Ally and Foe

remnant of their strength and numbers. The account of the
ancient Greek Xenophon in the Anabasis may be taken as a
classic example of this survival power in soldiers. Hardly a
major war since Xenophon's time has been without similar
feats of endurance, though few have had a chronicler such
ashe.

What is the relation of possessions to this self-preservative
love? Can men, in extreme peril separate the rescue of their
naked lives from the preservation of their nearest possessions?
Possessions are for the combat soldier his only assurance of
protection against a threatening world. He cares for them,
often with more attention than he pays to his own body. His
weapons are in this category, and also some articles of dress
and precious souvenirs. The intimate relation of the soldier
to his weapons involves more than any love of possessions.
Often the vehicles and implements of war come to be a replace­
ment for home. This appears to be the crucial relation of

possessions to the impulse of sell-preservation. Such posses­
sions are not only an extension of the soldier's own power, but
they are his link with past and future. In one of the letters in
the volume Letzte Briefe aus Stalingrad, we read of a hard­
ened German tank soldier sobbing irresistibly because his
tank had been destroyed. Its loss meant more to him than did
the loss of his comrades. Why? I think it was because the
tank had become an imaginative equivalent of the home he
had left. It was a second skin, a protective layer against the
harsh outer world.

Modern uniforms are so thin and penetrable. Unlike the
heavy mail of earlier times, they offer little protection for
body or spirit. Therefore, soldiers tend to hug to themselves
several layers of possessions as a symbolic protection and, at
the same time, as a link with past security and future hopes.

81



THE WARRIORS

Much of the American soldier's passion for souvenirs in recent
wars may have stemmed not so much from a primitive desire
to loot or even from the desire to establish in postwar memory
his claim "to having been there," though both these motives
were undoubtedly present in some degree. Primarily, souvenirs
appeared to give the soldier some assurance of his future
beyond the destructive environment of the present. They repre­
sented a promise that he might survive. They protected him
from the feeling of being unbearably exposed and vulnerable,
and, so, prevented him from being reduced to his naked life.
Perhaps all of us, in peace or in war, use possessions for a
similar purpose, as a defense against the world.

In cases of extreme exposure, nevertheless, the majority of
soldiers seem able to grasp the difference between life and

possessions, and will commonly sacrifice all they have to pre­
serve their own being. As prisoners of war, or on long forced
marches, or in campaigns of extreme hazard, soldiers learn
more often than civilians ever do that everything external is
replaceable, while life is not. When a soldier has had to face
death often enough, something like a rough hierarchy of values
develops in even the simplest mind, and life is nearly always
ahead of possessions in the scale. Selfish, egotistical natures
prove in such situations to possess less of the genuine love of
self-preservation than do others who on the surface are not so
eager for life. I suppose the shallow nature is not easily able
to view his naked existence, since part of his being is having.
Hence soldiers like this often lose their lives in the effort to
hold on to some treasured possession.

One would think that learning to do without possessions,
experiencing the loss of external holdings, might produce a
peculiar blessing for the soldier in his future life as a civilian.
But in fact most soldiers quickly forget their wartime order of

valu
forg
erty
to p
to pi
as th
mon

p
in a

thin)
nurs

ami
reeo

of

�yn
sud
mot

Hev
life

as

82



lUS in recent
mitive desu�
�twar memory
tbese motlv�
ari\y, souvenm
� of b� futmt

llt.lherff�re,
protected nm

and rulnef�l� I
o :s naKedlik

'""ions IOf!

ce are not!o

ot easilr aDI�
ng is na�D�,
ilieeffortto

possessiOD!,
t produce a

a civilian,
e order 01

Love: J1"ar'$ AU" and Foe

values when they return to the security of peace, as most of us
forget the blessings of health when we are no longer ill. Prop­
erty comes to be once more an inseparable part of the drive
to persevere in our own being. Pure awareness of the struggle
to preserve ourselves is not granted to us often in life, just
as the imminence of death at any moment of our lives is com­

monly concealed from us by unconscious suppression.
Preservative love, or concern, is clearly observed in combat

in a soldier's care for life other than his own. There is some­

thing endlessly instructive in the spectacle of doctors and
nurses fighting stubbornly to preserve life and minimal health
amid chaos. And the medical corpsman whose duty it is to
recover the wounded from front lines often overcomes his fear
of death and frightful weariness in performing his work.
Sympathy and tenderheartedness are not notably present in
such people; they quickly grow calloused to suffering. The
motive that drives them forward, more than any other, I be­
lieve, is an impersonal passion for protecting and conserving
life itself.

This impulse is not restricted at all to those whose official
duty it is to preserve; it sometimes becomes a general passion
and finds a place in the majority of soldiers. Waifs and
orphans and lost pets have a peculiar claim on the affections
of combat soldiers, who lavish upon them unusual care and
tenderness. For the most part, there is little affinity between
protector and protected in these cases. The soldiers are moved
by the impersonal compassion that the fragility and helpless­
ness of mortal creatures can call up in most of us. This fre­

quently extends to the enemy wounded. Medical men will risk
their lives on occasion to rescue wounded enemy soldiers, and
doctors in field hospitals will fight as obstinately for the one
as the other. The distinction between friend and foe has here

83



THE WARRIORS

been erased by the recognition of the helplessness of a creature powers
whose life is threatened with extinction. both

ar

Superficially, this concern for preserving life other than nightm
one's own appears to be separated by a deep gulf from the The

con

instinct for self-preservation. The one begins, many will say, ret
pie

only when the other is assured. Yet this is not so. Often on the even
red

battlefield the desire to persevere in our being and the pres- ille and

ervation of other life are seen to be closely related below the not grea
conscious level. The thousand anonymous acts of concern for lather's

the life that is exposed to shot and shell is testimony to an earth,
]

ultimate unity between these impulses. threat

Among the many examples in war literature of concern for If
w

preserving others, two in particular have a haunting quality in discov

my memory. In Stephen Crane's The Red Badge 0/ Courage, lrom
(

the young soldier who is the focus of the story has fled the love,
'[

battlefield in panic and is wandering around lost and nearly ilian 1
demented somewhere in the immediate rear of the confused own 1

struggle. Then an older soldier, a simple man who is an island to the
of gentleness, aids him through the falling darkness back to his The

regiment and company, where he regains his bearings and the

courage once again. The act is a wholly gratuitous one. The iliat

young soldier does not even see the face of his anonymous resb

savior, much less have the presence of mind to thank him. And lov�
the old soldier, for his part, has no thought of doing anything sell
deserving of praise. His was not so much an act of choice as th'
an act of unconscious preservation without much specific ili
feeling on his part for the youth. Though Crane has dealt with
fictional characters in this remarkable story, there are thou- r�
sands of soldiers who will testify to the authenticity of such
incidents in combat.

In Tolstoi's War and Peace, it is the wealthy and cultured
Pierre who is kept in possession of his physical and moral

84



e other ilian
gulf from In!

many will sari
0, Often on I�!
!1 and the �r�
\ated below lli�

01 concern lor
unonr 10 an

re of concern lor
_�inu quauryfu

e 0/ Coura�11
cry bas �ea lli�
10:1 ana near!)

of ilie conll1&�
'no is an is!an�
e"baCK 10M

:s bearin� an�
'taus one, Thl

1lli anonymow
ank bim, An�

Love: WaT's Ally and Foe

powers by the childlike peasant Karatiev during the period
both are prisoners of the French in Moscow and later on the
nightmarish retreat with the disorganized army of Napoleon.
The contrast between these two men could hardly be greater,
yet Pierre becomes aware of how infinitely preservative, and
even redeeming, the concern of this simple man for another's
life and well-being can be. For Karatiev, taking care of Pierre is
not greatly different from taking care of the animals on his
father's farm, or, indeed, taking care of plants and the good
earth. His instincts are all directed toward countering the
threat of annihilation that surrounds life everywhere.

If we ask about the nature of love as concern, I think we can
discover some characteristic features that make it different
from other forms of love. Unlike the highest type of erotic
love, it is directed to general goals and is of communal, more
than individual, character. Whether the concern is for one's
own being and chances of survival or whether it is directed
to the preservation of other life, I doubt if its nature is altered.
The object of one's care is less essential than the presence of
the need to take care and to preserve. The characteristic mood
that accompanies love as concern is neither deep joy nor un­
restrained grief, so often typical of erotic love. Concerned
love knows relief and it knows anxiety in its depths, but
seldom does it put everything at stake on the preservation of
this or that life or treasure. Its care is for the whole and not

the part.
This love is, in men, evidently pervasive and immanent

rather than ecstatic. It does not seize us from without, but
arises out of our own nature. Hence it may be less periodic
and more dependable than erotic love, though less able to
dominate many men in moments of crisis. After we have raged
through wars that lasted years, we have always had to make

85



THE WARRIORS

peace again. Then we are dependent upon this desire, which
has long been subordinated in us by war, to cultivate and
reconstruct. Were this impulse not pervasive and dependable,
the race of man would hardly have survived and grown so
powerful on this planet, surrounded as we are by manifold
dangers of nature and torn by murderous lusts within our own
species.

I think it is concerned love that, more than anything else,
helps us find our way back to peace again and heals the
hatred of belligerents for each other. When soldiers lose this
need to preserve and become impersonal killers, they are truly
figures of terror. Fortunately, few men ever obliterate this
kind of love altogether, though they may well become indif­
ferent to their own fate and full of hatred for a large segment
of mankind. Few of us reflect enough on the good fortune
that attends us as human beings in being pervaded by pre­
servative love. If our wars were to make killers of all combat
soldiers, rather than men who have killed, civilian life would
be endangered for generations or, in fact, made impossible.

Concern in its farther reaches is directed beyond human
life to the works of man and to the things of nature. It is
present in the builder of dwellings and the tiller of the soil as
well as in the thousand modifications of these basic occupa­
tions. We see it, if we have thoughtful eyes, at work every­
where, and the slightest incident in war can teach us more about
it than the longest campaign. I remember riding through Ger­
many in the last days of World War II, in pursuit of the dis­
organized enemy. Outside a battered city somewhere in Wiirt­
temberg there was a lovely terraced plot of ground on which a
house had stood. It had been razed by bombs and fire, and
even the fence around it had been destroyed. Only the front
gate remained, though it was awry on its hinges and partly

86

SID

care

first
on n

lng,
S I

our

To

Duila

conse

after
these
ever

neen
Nom
this �
Iilea
�uch
i� str
ana

Pe
ture

tlon
not



�sire, which
llltivate ana
dependable,
ld grown �
by manlfolij
lthin our o�

anythin� e�,
and heah ��
\diers lo� 1M
lIner are Irul,
oolilerate lli�
oecome in�,

impo&lilile,
e�·ona numa�
nature, It �
of ilie SOll�
asic OCCll�a,
work mry'
more�oll!

ough �l'
t of ilie ai�

rein Wiirt,

on whlcha
d nre, ana

iliefron!
d partir

Love: WaT's Ally and Foe

smashed. As my jeep passed, I caught a glimpse of the owner
carefully working to repair the gate. The sight struck me at
first as absurd and comical in the extreme, for the gate opened
on nothing any longer. But the recollection was deeply cheer­
ing, and much later I realized why. The repair of the gate
symbolized perfectly the civilizing impulse in human creatures,
our urge to preserve and conserve, to take care and to cultivate.

Today many are astonished by the way Germans, for exam­
ple, rebuild their shattered cities with houses meant to last for
a century, when they can hardly be sure that the uneasy peace
will endure for five years. Such observers may conclude that
Germans are incurably optimistic. In fact, of course, they are
not. They themselves scarcely know why they work so hard and
build so permanently when they lie under the shadow of the
iron curtain. Realistically seen, they are probably foolish. But,
after a period of destructive lust, such permanent building
satisfies a deep impulse in this people to give full play to
conservative and constructive powers. One might think that
after three decades or more of extreme disorder and conflict,
these powers would be paralyzed, or at least lamed. Yet what­
ever else has been lost in the German nation, and much has
been lost, resistance to destruction and to chaos is still strong.
No modern war has until now lasted long enough to contract
this preservative love to mere survival of the individual naked
life or to make men in large numbers unregenerate killers.
Such wars are possible in the future. But the civilizing impulse
is strong indeed, and frequently carries us along after reason
and will have been temporarily overpowered.

Pervasive as this love is, and connected with the very struc­
ture of civilization, its appeal is always greatest when destruc­
tion is close at hand and threatening to overwhelm us. I can­
not believe that wars are necessary for the fulfillment of this

87



THE WARRIORS

form of love, but it does get called into play most prominently
in periods of calamity and raging wars. The delight in destruc­
tion is its complete antagonist; therefore, we ought not to be
surprised that love as concern is most impressive in time of
conflict. It was very important to me.

Perhaps it is this inactivity of the past few days that is affecting
me. But Despair is clutching at me often of late, particularly as 1
lie in bed at night. I need to believe more. I need faith in love and
in God. I guess I need to love more.... I want so much to come
out of it a chastened and wiser person, so that I may be something
to others in the postwar world. I need to overcome my gloomy
and foreboding spirit.

Again, as in the highest form of erotic love, this kind of
love produces a kind of awareness that is lacking in normal
life. Our deeper powers lie dormant and undeveloped unless
we are pushed to the abyss. Perhaps those philosophers of
history are right who read civilization in terms of alternating
periods of conservation and destruction, and hold that both are
necessary for any real progress. For them, the delight in
destruction and preservative love are necessary powers in
human history, in some manner complementing each other.
The exclusive interest in conserving the already existent would
lead to stagnation were it not balanced by destructive forces
which periodically sweep away ossified forms as a means of
renewal. Love as concern for preserving in being is only
meaningful, these philosophers would hold, when it is pitted
against revolutionary forces of destruction. I do not know. At
all events, I have never again in my life been so aware of the
beneficent character of concern as during the war years.

W8j
ena

twe

wei
mos

i�el
man

relal
anol

saiu
nis I

�

yoUl
wne
Is
are

lml
iriel
!rie
affin
oln,
Ini

1
fort
inl
erel

sOil
enc

COl

There is another kind of love, with no relation to destruc­
tion, that men sometimes experience in war in the most crucial

em

fnl
int

88



�!ominentl1
ht in destru�
gbt not to D�
ve in time 01

that � a�ec��
rticuwr!YaJi

oith in love aM
o much locofM
.0 be somellU�
co e mr g�oml

.

gin nonnru
� °elopea unllSl
hilo opne� �I

. of allernatini
a iliat Doili�re
�e aelignt ID

Love: War's Ally and Foe

way. It is the love we call friendship. Now friendship has often
enough been defined in our tradition as that relationship be­
tween human beings in which each dispassionately seeks the
welfare of the other. Friendship is thus thought to be the
most unselfish form of love, since in the pure state it devotes
itself without reserve to the interests of the other. Accordingly,
many societies have exalted friendship as the noblest of all
relationships, and even the founder of Christianity, to whom
another form of love took precedence, is declared to have
said: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends."

What meaning has friendship for warriors? How can a
young man endure battle when the fear of death is doubled,
when not only his own life but that of his friend is at stake?
Is the quality of this relationship heightened or reduced by the
dread strain of war? Before trying to answer these questions,
I must first attempt to make clear a basic difference between
friends and comrades. Only those men or women can be
friends, I believe, who possess an intellectual and emotional
affinity for each other. They must be predetermined for each
other, as it were, and then must discover each other, some­
thing that happens rarely enough in peace or war.

Though many men never have a friend, and even the most
fortunate of us can have few, comradeship is fortunately with­
in reach of the vast majority. Suffering and danger cannot
create friendship, but they make all the difference in comrade­
ship. Men who have lived through hard and dangerous experi­
ences together are frequently deceived about their relationship.
Comrades love one another like brothers, and under the influ­
ence of shared experience commonly vow to remain true
friends for the rest of their lives. But when other experiences
intervene and common memories dim, they gradually become

89



THE WARRIORS

strangers. At veterans' conventions they can usually regain the
old feelings only with the aid of alcoholic stimulation. The
false heartiness and sentimentality of such encounters are
oppressive and pathetic. Men who once knew genuine close­
ness to each other through hazardous experience have lost one
another forever. And since most men rarely attain anything
closer to friendship than this, the loss of comradeship cannot
be taken lightly. When veterans try to feel for their old buddies
what they felt in battle and fail, they frequently cherish some­
where in their secret memories the unsentimental original
passion.

The essential difference between comradeship and friend­
ship consists, it seems to me, in a heightened awareness of the
self in friendship and in the suppression of self-awareness in
comradeship. Friends do not seek to lose their identity, as
comrades and erotic lovers do. On the contrary, friends find
themselves in each other and thereby gain greater self-knowl­
edge and self-possession. They discover in their own breasts,
as a consequence of their friendship, hitherto unknown poten­
tialities for joy and understanding. This fact does not make
friendship a higher form of selfishness, as some misguided
people have thought, for we do not seek such advantages in
friendship for ourselves. Our concern, insofar as we are
genuine friends, is for the friend. That we ourselves also
benefit so greatly reveals one of the hidden laws of human
affinity. While comradeship wants to break down the walls of
self, friendship seeks to expand these walls and keep them
intact. The one relationship is ecstatic, the other is wholly
individual. Most of us are not capable of meeting the demands
on self that friendship brings, whereas comradeship is in most
respects an easing of these demands. Comrades are content to
be what they are and to rest in their emotional bliss. Friends

mllS

roaM
ano

of ill
raae.

"�

fiara
live f

�acro
I

*Iy
raaes
war, �

coural
in tfie
ana

Fo

olner;
is not

orain
-I

�vin�
can

Ine 10
of grl
isbre
can h
and �

WI
seem

seide
frien
iliat

90



� regain the
alation. Tne
�ounters are
enuine clo�
have lost on!
\am an�nini
de hip cann�1
it old OUddi�
cherisn som!,
ental ori�ru

p. misguiaf�
aayanla�es ID

as we an

urselves a�
's of nUIDan

tne wa�ol
keep Inero

r is wnollr
oe aemanas

is in most

content 10

. Friend!

Love: War's AUy and Foe

must always explore and probe each other, in the attempt to
make each one complete through drawing out the secrets of
another's being. Yet each recognizes that the inner fountain
of the other is inexhaustible. Friends are not satiable, as com­
rades so often are when danger is past.

"That a man lay down his life for his friends" is indeed a
hard saying and testifies to a supreme act of fortitude. Friends
live for each other and possess no desire whatsoever for self­
sacrifice. When a man dies for his friend, he does it deliber­
ately and not in an ecstasy of emotion. Dying for one's com­
rades, on the other hand, is a phenomenon occurring in every
war, which can hardly be thought of as an act of superhuman
courage. The impulse to self-sacrifice is an intrinsic element
in the association of organized men in pursuit of a dangerous
and difficult goal.

For friends, however, dying is terribly hard, even for each
other; both have so much to lose. The natural fear of dying
is not so hard for them to overcome. What is hard is the loss
or diminution of companionship through death. Friends know
-I am tempted to say, only friends know-what they are
giving up through self-sacrifice. It is said, to be sure, that they
can communicate with one another even beyond death, but
the loss is nevertheless cruel and final. Too often at moments
of greatest need, when one's friend is dead, communication
is broken off and one's dialogue becomes monologue. Friends
can hardly escape the recognition of death as unmitigated evil
and the most formidable opponent of their highest value.

War and battle create for this love both a peculiar kind of
security and a kind of exposure, which other forms of love
seldom know. The security arises from the insulation that
friendship affords against the hatreds and the hopelessness
that combat often brings. Even though one friend may be in

91



THE WARRIORS

safety at home, the friend who fights knows that somewhere
the other is participating in his life. Through letters he can
communicate his deepest feelings and his explorations of the
evil experiences through which he is passing. Even when let­
ters are cut off, friends can communicate in their memories of
each other, each explaining in imagination to the other and
having the assurance of being understood. There is joy in
having a person who understands completely and whom you
understand. It insulates the soldier's heart without closing his
mind to the experiences he is undergoing. The German poet
Goethe put nearly perfectly the situation of friends even in
wartime. The English translation is by J. S. Dwight.

can

sort

to

pat�
and
affii

str�1aCCI
ance

area

B)
ahSelig, wer sich vor der Welt

Ohne Hass verschliesst,
Einen Freund am Busen halt
Und mit dem geniesst,

Was, von Menschen nicht gewusst
Oder nicht bedacht,
Durch das Labyrinth der Brust
Wandelt in der Nacht.

even

ayna
frien
oftl
easil
The
att

Kmel

withl
cono

In

�ossl
horn

ex�c
ae�!
earl
not}
ana

Happy he who, hating none,
Leaves the world's dull noise,
And with trusty friend alone,
Quietly enjoys

What, forever unexpressed,
Hid from common sight,
Through the mazes of the breast
Softly steals by night!

Friends can indeed close themselves without hatred from
the world and draw from the labyrinth of each other's being

92



t somewhere
etters he can
rations of tn!
.ven when Ie!,
I memories�1
the other an�
ere is jor rn

an� whom r�ij
out clo�in� �
e German ��I

'en� even i�
nunt

batrea from
�er's bein�

Love : War's Ally and Foe

inexhaustible wealth. They can thus endure much of war's
horror without losing the zest for life. More than that, they
can discover meaning in experiences of the most gruesome
sort which others do not see. Friendship opens up the world
to us by insulating us against passions that narrow our sym­
pathies. It gives us an assurance that we belong in the world
and helps to prevent the sense of strangeness and lostness that
afflicts sensitive people in an atmosphere of hatred and de­
struction. When we have a friend, we do not feel so much
accidents of creation, impotent and foredoomed. The assur­
ance of friendship has been enough to help soldiers over many
dreadful things without harm to their integrity.

But friendship makes life doubly dear, and war is always
a harvest of death. Hence friends are exposed to an anxiety
even greater than that of other lovers. There is no destructive
dynamic in friendship, no love of death or sacrifice. Because
friends supplement each other, they cannot face the prospect
of the other's death without shuddering. Comforts can be
easily abjured, dangers easily borne, if death is not the issue.
The unendurable fear that grips friends on the battlefield is
at the farthest remove from the recklessness of the soldier­
killer. Among friends war's ultimate horror is experienced
without much counterbalancing compensation. Like love as
concern, it is directed toward preservation of being.

In every slain man on the battlefield, one can recognize a
possible friend of someone. His fate makes all too clear the
horrible arbitrariness of the violence to which my friend is

exposed. Therefore, in love as friendship we have the most
dependable enemy of war. The possible peaks of intensity and
earlier maturity which war may bring. to friendship are as
nothing compared with the threats of loss it holds. The feelings
and the affinities that are the core of friendship are the true

93



THE WARRIORS

opposites of the hostile disposition that underlies all warfare.
That the one disposition can so easily destroy the other tempts
every man who knows friendship to despair and hopelessness.

When death comes to one's friend in the natural course, his

loss is cruel enough, reducing the possibility of comprehend­
ing events. But friends in time can grow resigned to the
finitude of existence, and old age, with its infirmities, helps to
reconcile most of us to death. Friendship cut off in its flower
by war's arbitrariness is likely to seem the height of unreason
and madness. What earlier had been luminous, ordered, and
purposeful in experience becomes suddenly emptied of mean­
ing. Unlike other loves, the preciousness of friendship has no
connection with its precariousness. Hence no ultimate consola­
tion is possible for the loss of a friend. Love as concern can
find new being to preserve and care for; its affection is not
individualized. Erotic love can usually, though not always,
find itself renewed when time has passed. The companionship
of a lost friend is not replaceable.

I do not mean to assert that erotic love, in which the whole
person is involved, and love as concern for preservation are
less inimical to war than is love as friendship. Analysis of the
distinctive forms of love should not betray us into forgetting
their blood relationship. These three forms alike stand to lose
in battle what makes life dear to them. Love in all three forms
stands clearly in opposition to Ares and carries the hope of
ultimate freedom from his reign. We do well to remember that
love is a genus with many species, and there is little danger
of exhausting the inner relations of the species. Those psychol­
ogists who find erotic elements in friendship and in maternal
love are hardly wrong. And I have intimated already that there
is a close affinity between love as concern and love as friend­
ship.

on

fiel
ieal
itS'

AnI
the

eXPI
ha�
can

stru

Tho
or h

pres
and
IU8tf
it8il

the J



a\l warlare,
other tempu
hopelessntSl,
al course, hij
comprehena,
igned to ili!
'ties, hel�� tij

1ft in its �ow�
::

\ of unreaJO!
s ordereo, ��
ptied of me�,

'en�ni� nasM
imate consol�

, into for�ettID!
le stano to lo�

allthreefonru
: ilie no�o!

rememherili!!
j. little aan��l
Those psrcnol,
din ma!ernru
dy that !ner�
re as friena,

Love: War's Ally and Foe

What has become clear to me, however, as I have meditated
on love and war, is that battle offers a very different exercise
field for these different forms of love. Insofar as Eros is phys­
ical passion and sensual impulsion, war has been from of old
its true mate and bedfellow, as the ancient myth makes clear.
And erotic love of the fuller sort can find a dwelling place in
the violence of war that forever astounds us and remains in­

explicable. Here Ares and Aphrodite meet as opposites who
have a powerful attraction for each other. Love as concern
can achieve at times its greatest satisfaction and triumph in
struggling to preserve what Ares is intent on destroying.
Though deeply opposed to conflict, this love is not as exposed
or helpless as is friendship. In the exercise of its ancient rights,
preservative love sanctifies even the battlefield by its presence
and holds men back from being delivered over wholly to the
lustful powers of destruction. But love as friendship, despite
its insulation, must subsist haphazardly and as best it may in
the midst- of war. Its true domain is peace, only peace.

95



At�
cemel
Germ
with

dog
rankJ
or s'
neat

Joake
oelk
joum

Wilel
roun

�en



FOUR

THE

SOLDIER'S

RELATIONS

TO DEATH

At the end 01 the Division area we came upon a recent American
cemetery. One hundred and ninety Americans and a lew dozen
Germans were interred there in plain temporary graves, marked
with simple wooden crosses on which were tacked one 01 their
dog tags and a bronze plate with their names, service numbers,
ranks, units, and date 01 death..•• Officers and privates lay side
by side, distinctions 01 rank being abolished here. The plot was
neat and enclosed by a wire [ence.... It was a cloudy, rain­
soaked day, with a chilling breeze.•.. Somehow I had never
believed in the reality 01 war's destructiveness until then. (WaT
journal, February 11, 1944)

When I was in France during the war, I met and lived with a
young Parisian brain surgeon, a rare and wonderful and

generous person, whose favorite expression was: "Everything

97



THE WARRIORS

I have, I give away." I never wrote in my journal-I did not
have the heart to write--about the last of my visits to him.

On this occasion he had received me with the warmth only
those know who have long had to associate with people who
cannot reach the most cherished areas of the self. But then he

launched into an account of a scene he had just witnessed, an
execution by the local FFI of a captured Mongolian soldier
who had been a member of a German repression unit in the
area. Eager to tell me his impressions of the blindfolding and
the shooting, the behavior of participants and spectators, he
did not notice my dismay. Had he struck me with his fist in­
stead of embracing me, as he had a moment before, I could
not have been so dumbfounded and suddenly sick at heart.

How could this sensitive, high-principled man, for whom I
had felt an affinity of the deepest kind, attend of his own free
will, without hatred, the slaughter of a fellow human being?
Often enough he had assured me of his loathing for cruelty
and his refusal to participate in the hatreds that consumed the
young people associated with him in the Resistance. Even at
this moment I knew he was incapable of destroying life. Why
would he attend such a spectacle, and why would he want to
talk about it?

For a while I did not dare ask him because of the coldness
that came over me. Then, since his friendship was dear, I was
able to resist the impulse to return to my jeep and drive away
and was able to speak of my abhorrence of his deed. We talked
at length about the subject of death and of dying. He was
convinced that the Mongolian had no thoughts at all about
what was happening to him. He had died as an animal does.
For this reason, he had been able to view the scene with de­
tachment. I was not so sure. Though the incident remained a
barrier between us, which I was not able to overcome, the

are

he

98



-1 did no!
,sits to him,
warmth onlr
\ �eople Wh�
[, Butthen n!

ying, He W�
at a� aboul

animalooe!,
eoe with De·

remaineD!
ercome, tne

The Soldier's Relations To Death

night's conversation made me think about the elementary
facts of facing death, as I had not hitherto done. On the way
back to my unit the following day, I began to ponder the
question how men at war consider the possibility of their own
imminent death. What relations to death can warriors attain,
or can they gain any relation to death at all?

In the months that followed, however, I was influenced more
than I cared to admit by the regnant mood of recklessness
with human life. Men are expendable, as the current phrase
had it; life was a commodity to be doled out and used up by a
superpersonal will. Probably few of us consciously reorganized
our values owing to this fact, but even the simplest mind
among us could sense that it mattered relatively little to the
collective body whether he survived or not. Though we could
not comprehend why death struck others and not us, we
learned to accept it as a brute fact. As long as it did not
strike one's friends, there was the great temptation to react
to it no differently than one did to other occurrences. The dead
Legan to seem both unreal and yet commonplace:

We are now at Artena, very near the front, and are in some
danger from artillery fire. This morning when we came up over a
fearfully dusty road, we entered Artena far enough to SEe a dead
American soldier over whom flies were swarming. The town is
still under shellfire, and there are some twelve dead in the streets.
We withdrew to a house on the edge of the town, where I am writ­
ing this now.... Small cemeteries, hastily constructed, line the
road and are everywhere. The roads are a churning mass of traffic
and dust, dangerous, unpleasant, necessary-the very substance
of war.

The gloomy October air is rent by the roar of big guns. They
are not frightening after the first startled awakening. But then one
hears the whistle and the rending explosion.... I am less fright-

99



THE WARRIORS

ened than most of the others, I know not why. Eventually one
becomes more or less used to it all, if not indifferent.

The shock administered by my friend was enough eventu­
ally to arouse me from this collective torpor. From then on I
became intensely curious to discover how soldiers react to this
absolute, death, in human existence, particularly when they
are alone in foxholes without the comfort of comrades. It is not

difficult to understand, as I have already pointed out, that
communal ecstasy can lead men to forget death and seek im­
mortality in pursuit of shared goals. But ecstasy of any sort
is essentially periodic and transient; it cannot be long sus­
tained. How then could youths who had hardly yet begun to
live endure the prospect of their own probable death? The fact
that thousands of them could do it was palpable enough; the
how of doing it was something of a mystery.

get
by
you
one

ilie
lati�

are

aea
ineo

ing
me�

Fral

Tod

One might argue that death in war is merely a matter of
increased probability, not different in principle from death in
time of peace. But this would be a superficial view, for not the
frequency of death but the manner of dying makes a qualita­
tive difference. Death in war is commonly caused by members
of my own species actively seeking my end, despite the fact
that they may never have seen me and have no personal reason
for mortal enmity. It is death brought about by hostile intent
rather than by accident or natural causes that separates war
from peace so completely. And the fact that death's chief
victims in war are young men or youths who are just becoming
men contributes greatly to the general mood. For the most
part, these youths must take leave of their lives under condi­
tions of exposure, away from home, without the possibility of
the dignity and ceremony that help to moderate death's shock­
ing character. The difference is not only between dying and

OUS,
una

l(Ia�

In I
aea

fuel
10

all

De

100



uentlUlUy one
:nt.

nough eventij,
rom then onl
�r react to �
.arly when t�!l
mrades. It I! ��

\nte� out, �t
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The Soldier's Relations To Death

getting killed. It is much more the difference between dying
by disease or accident among people who know and cherish
you and having your life cut off without preparation by some­
one who cares not at all for the anguish he causes. This creates
the terrible hatred of war, particularly among civilian popu­
lations.

The majority of soldiers in modern wars, I am convinced,
are able to gain only a negative relation to death. For them,
death is a state and a condition so foreign and unreal as to be
incomprehensible. They reject it with aversion without bring­
ing its reality to the level of consciousness. Thus, in the sum­
mer of 1944, when I was waiting for the invasion of southern
France to begin, an invasion I was to join, I wrote:

What do I think of this new adventure looming before me?
Today I have thought about it for the first time. It will be danger­
ous, that is certain. It will also be difficult. But somehow I am
unable to anticipate. I simply await-and dream of the end of the
war. I daydream more than I used to.

In peacetime, young people are likely to dismiss the fact of
death as something that happens to somebody else; seldom do
they take seriously the certainty that they themselves will have
to cope with it. In war soldiers cannot ignore death, for it is
all too prevalent. But imagining what it is like to be dead is
endlessly difficult. Imagination and intellect must be operative
if we are to bridge the gap between life and death, and many
soldiers understandably try to avoid exercising either. Battle­
field dead are so passive, and life is, to our Western youth at
least, bound up totally with activity and action. Soldiers fall
and die in such contorted and unnatural positions, as a rule,
that even their comrades find it hard to believe that, shortly
before, they were alive. This is part of the mystery of death:

101



THE WARRIORS

those who enter its realm are quickly far removed from the
living. In battle, where the demands of action are insistent,
the process is, if possible, even more speeded up.

This morning we got word early that we had been selected as
the group to enter Rome.... Everywhere was the picture of an
Army pursuing another, ruined tanks and vehicles of all sorts,
houses burned, everything hastily done. The sight of the dead
soldiers did not trouble me as much as I had expected. They
seemed almost part of the general wreckage, and one found it
hard to believe that they had ever been alive, much less a few
hours ago.

In mortal danger, numerous soldiers enter into a dazed
condition in which all sharpness of consciousness is lost.
When in this state, they can be caught up into the fire of com­
munal ecstasy and forget about death by losing their indi­
viduality, or they can function like cells in a military organ­
ism, doing what is expected of them because it has become
automatic. It is astonishing how much of the business of war­
fare can still be carried on by men who act as automatons,
behaving almost as mechanically as the machines they
operate.

Most of us remember with a shudder those endless pictures
of Hitler's troops, before World War II, riding into one con­
quered country after another. They were frightening because
they not only looked identical in clothing and equipment, but
the set expression on their faces appeared to be vacant and
purposeless. All humanity had eroded from those faces, so it
seemed, and we were confronted by deadly efficient robots who
were controlled by a powerful, inhuman will. So it often is in
combat itself. Death comes to thousands who are only min­
imally conscious and snatches them away from life without
their awareness of the moment or its significance.

C(

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102



�d from ilie
ne insistent I

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The Soldier's Relations To Death

There are two things that promote this drugged state so
common in combat: training and fatigue. The routine of
military life, the repetition, drill, and uniformity of response,
works to dampen and dull any individual intensity of aware­
ness. Even the civilian soldier who finds the military way
quite alien and strange can learn to hold fast to the few simple
rules, to be a proper cog in the vast machine, and to suspend
thoughts that might unfit him for his appointed mission. He
learns to expect orders from above and to pass them along
to those under his control. Thinking tends to become not only
painful but more and more unnecessary.

To be sure, battle often presents the soldier with novelty,
demanding initiative, for which he has been unprepared. But
this, too, distracts him from thought of death. He is much too
busy trying to fit the novel situation into the well-worn pat­
terns of response he has been practicing for many months or
years. What does his commander expect of him in this un­

precedented situation? Should he advance, stay where he is, or
retreat? His mind becomes so preoccupied with the mechanics
of action that larger issues never enter, and self-awareness is
dimmed to the vanishing point. This is as true of the general
as it is of the private soldier, perhaps more true of the general,
to whom the battle must conform to some pattern of his long
training in strategy and tactics. A psychologist would probably
insist that this absorption with routine and details was the
mind's escape from its fear of extinction. If so, the escape is

usually effective.
The second hindrance to realization of death's imminence

is the physical weariness that is usually precedent to any en­
gagement in battle. Loss of sleep, long marches, cold food, and
the nervous tension that the destruction common to forward
areas evokes combine to exhaust the combat soldier. This

103



THE WARRIORS

weariness can go beyond borders that most of us ever know at 01
other periods in our lives. It alone can so stupefy the senses fe
that soldiers behave like sleepwalkers. Continued over a bI
period of time, such exhaustion can induce men to welcome or
death as a rest and a change from what they have been doing. en
I wrote in my journal of my own feeling after hard, bitter th
months: en

TI
The days pass and I become duller of mind and tireder of the war.
The way is long and sometimes I question the wisdom of it all, of
continuing to live. There may be a real purpose in it all, which is
perceived only at the end of the journey. Somehow I feel that is
true.

This is part of the unromantic answer to the question how
young men can face nearly certain death in war. It comes as a
relief from what they are doing. Death appears to be rest; it is
quiet, sleep, and even the most stupefied can gain some appre­
ciation of what that means.

I have seen exhausted soldiers sleeping while exposed to the
greatest danger of death. It might be said that these soldiers
had won some positive relationship to death in conceiving it
as sleep and rest. But in most cases, I think, this would be
going too far. Men overcome by weariness are not really relat­
ing death to rest or sleep; they have simply an overwhelming
feeling that change is a necessity and death is a change. Their
aversion to the incomprehensible state of death has not been
altered, as a few hours' rest makes clear. It has only been
superseded by physical need of the most insistent kind.

Yet these explanations do not account completely for the
large percentage of soldiers who die in war without being
able to face death or gain any relationship to it save one of
horror and aversion. The dazed consciousness must have

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104



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must have

The Soldier's Relations To Death

other sources as well. In part it is also due, I believe, to the
fear of pain and mutilation which bullets and shrapnel can
bring. Pain is something very real in the memories of every­
one, as death is not, and most combat soldiers have witnessed

enough gaping wounds and listened to the agonized cries of
the wounded often enough so that they cannot consciously
endure the thought of the same thing happening to them.
Though the dread of death may be at the bottom of conscious
processes at such moments, the fear of being painfully injured
is much in the foreground. This fear dulls self-awareness as
effectively as fatigue and routine can and has a more lasting
influence. Fear can prey on the mind to the point where it
makes a soldier unfit for combat. Usually it rises just high
enough to prevent reason, and with it the detachment of self­
consciousness, from governing.

Above all, this stupefaction of consciousness is doubtless a
function of the total environment of war. To some extent it
afflicts everyone much of the time. After a few months in the
combat zone, I, at least, found it hard indeed to believe in any
other reality than war or to contrast it with any other state.

Sometimes I am overcome with the desire to go off by myself and
live in a hermitage. I cannot face the prospect of going back to
any of my old haunts after the war. I shall not want to speak of
these war years, and I cannot be as I was. What is left?

One does not want to die and cannot live as he would.

The past had grown so distant and unreal that another way
of life was hard to imagine. The realization of oneself and the
objective conditions of one's life can come in wartime with
piercing intensity and unforgettable clarity. But the environ­
ment of violence and hatred commonly insulates us against

105



revelations of ourselves by making any break-through to con- im:
sciousness doubly difficult. fidl

coIl

THE WARRIORS

If the majority of soldiers gain no positive relationship to
death, there are others who do, and the relationships are of
numerous kinds, from the more abstract and conventional to
the concrete and personal. There is a type of soldier who con­
siders death very real for others but without power over him.
These soldiers cherish the conviction that they are mysteri­
ously impervious to spattering bullets and exploding shells.
The little spot of ground on which they stand is rendered
secure by their standing on it. Death is an impersonal force
that can rob other men of their motion and their powers, but
for them it has no body or substance at all. Some soldiers even
manage to get through a long war with this conviction unim­
paired. It is a conviction tbat is responsible for much rashness
in battle, misnamed courage. Since such soldiers are freed
from anxiety, they are frequently able to see the ridiculous
and amusing aspects of combat life and provide much price­
less cheer and humor for their comrades.

Fortunate is the unit that can count one or more of these

soldiers in its ranks; and in fact most units do appear to con­
tain them. They are a perennial phenomenon in war, a cause
of wonder and admiration, as though their like had never
been. Sometimes they become the subject of war tales, which
quickly take on mythlike proportions. If such soldiers com­
mand men, as frequently happens, they have the capacity to
inspire their troops to deeds of recklessness and self-sacrifice.

In most of these soldiers, the source of their relationship
toward death-as a reality for others only-is not too dif­
ficult to discover. They have simply preserved their childish
illusion that they are the center of the world and are therefore

106

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therefore

The Soldier's Relations To Death

immortal. Their ego is incredibly nafve and their self-con­
fidence absurd to anyone who is capable of regarding them
coldly. Civilian life contains many such naive egoists, I am
convinced, but the presence of danger and the seemingly
arbitrary fortunes of war weaken the illusion of indestruc­
tibility in most delayed adolescents. In others, stronger shocks
are required. Until a drastic occurrence touches them closely,
they preserve their fantastic faith. Perhaps their own wound­
ing is necessary. The look of shock and outrage on such a
soldier's face when that happens is likely to be unforgettable.
At one cruel stroke he loses forever the faith in his physical
immortality. His psychological adjustment to the new world
he has to inhabit is certain to be harder than the physical
recovery from his wounds. Most of us learn when we are

younger, at home and gradually, to accept the sad truth that
the world does not revolve around us. Even then the discovery
is not easy or simple. At the front or in a field hospital, this
truth is disillusioning in the extreme. The soldier who learns it
there will never be the same again. Sometimes he becomes a
cynic, his former humor and lightheartedness utterly corroded
by a lost trust in the world he inhabits. He may also become a
coward, with blanching fear of all danger, a man henceforth
useless to his military unit.

When the belief in one's indestructibility is due to a defect
of imagination, other experiences than being wounded may
suffice to waken the soldier to his situation. It may be the death
of an acquaintance in his arms, where the transition between
life and death is made imaginatively visible for the first time,
or it may be the rare sight of death in lifelike form that
startles him into self-consciousness. Animals on the battlefield
sometimes afford the most memorable examples of the latter.

Those American soldiers who came up Route Six in Italy

107



THE WARRIORS

on the way to Rome on April 4 or 5, 1944, will scarcely have
forgotten the magnificent horses that were shot down, ap­
parently by our Hiers, as they were fleeing madly northward.
The retreating Germans had run out of fuel for their vehicles
and must have commandeered the horses from the estate of
some wealthy fancier of such creatures. The horses had fallen
in harness, with their heads high in the air, eyes opened and
distended in terror. Their legs had folded under them, as
though paralyzed, and they lay upright on their bellies, look­
ing as if they wanted to continue their Hight without means
of locomotion. There were many of them, in columns, and
the strafing bullet wounds were hardly visible. The dead sol­
diers who lay around, German and American, in the usual
distorted postures, could not persuade us that they had been
alive a few hours before, but hardly anyone was able to look
at the horses without a shudder. Little imagination was re­
quired to see what death was like, for the eyes of those thor­
oughbred animals contained its image in painful clarity. Such
scenes, repeated on different battlefields and in every war,
often suffice to imprint on the minds of some soldiers the
indelible truth that death plays no favorites. I learned this
truth.

in
mi

This morning we went to Laiatico, a town that had been shelled
to pieces by German artillery in the past two days and presented
as grim an aspect as any we have yet seen. A huge dead horse was
lying inside one of the ruined houses, and the smell of death was
everywhere. At first there was no sight of civilians, but we found
them later, collected in shelters, many wounded, all miserable, aU
frightened because the town was still receiving an occasional
shell.... In many ways this town was no different from the others,
but it left a grimmer impression. It made me realize afresh what
war is.... The citizenry was bitter. There was much pillaging and
theft on the part of civilians, also soldiers, while the populace WlU

m

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The Soldier's Relations To Death

in air-raid shelters. What a brute man is. He thrives on his fellow's
misery.

We are in Laiatico.... The smell of death is everywhere. Five
civilians were killed and lay in the bombed-out church for a week
until the smell was unbearable. Yesterday I took a walk to the
outskirts of the village and discovered an American soldier of our
Division lying dead in a potato patch. He had not been dead long.
I could discover no bullet wound, but he had fallen backward
with his head downhill and the blood had run into his face and
filled up his throat and mouth. . . . Looking closer I discovered
that he was very young, a lad from Louisiana, his dog tag re­
vealed. I have forgotten his name. The flies had arrived already
and were feasting on the blood in his open mouth. . . . A little
farther on were the carcasses of four huge oxen, killed by shells.
They, too, presented a horrible sight, with their huge bodies stiff
and their legs in the air. A farmhouse stood nearby, riddled by
shot and shell. The inhabitants had fled. Inside the house a door
banged with the gusts of air. Chickens and a few white rabbits
were around the yard and one live ox stood stoically and uncon­
cerned nearby....

But in some few men the illusion of indestructibility is oc­
casioned by deeper causes than deficient imagination or de­
layed adolescence. It is a function of an indomitable will to
power which refuses to recognize ordinary mortality. Such
men have a fanatic faith in their destiny which is only
strengthened by narrow escapes and the sight of death in
manifold forms. They are commonly leaders and win recogni­
tion as fearless warriors whose iron nerves and will to victory
are out of all proportion to those of other men. We know these
exceptional persons from the pages of military history, and
perhaps many of us have seen their smaller counterparts in our
own ranks. Nothing but their own death will rob them of their
illusion, and it is one of the mysteries of combat that they so

109



THE WARRIORS

rarely get killed. Little do they have to recommend them as
friends or comrades. As a rule, they are vain and empty, con­
temptuous of all who are not like themselves. Battle appears
to be their very element, and in that element men will not
hesitate to pay them homage. Nevertheless, it is not courage
they display, not the human will triumphing over fate. If their
vitality and their will are admirable in themselves, there is
little that is specifically human about their whole mentality.
They hardly recognize other men as such and are capable of
walking over bodies, living or dead, without a qualm. In their
secret hearts they despise friend and foe equally, these supreme
egoists. If nature brought many such forth, the world would
be more of a shambles after warfare than it customarily is.

For those who have never shared this illusion that death is

something that happens only to others, it is probably fool­
hardy to try to formulate the relation to death this type of
soldier sustains. At all events it is a relation, something that
can hardly be said of the earlier-mentioned and much more
common type. For this soldier, death is envisioned as an ex­
ternal power which subjects others to its realm and makes
them fearful. The naive egoist has thus no wish to banish this
power. From his fearlessness before it, he gains his distinc­
tiveness. He can control it and deal it out, but into its mys­
teries he has no wish to penetrate. Perhaps he sometimes
wonders why others appear to know more about death than
he, though he is normally incurious. His vitality and egoism
are in an utterly separate sphere from death, and they, too,
are equally taken for granted. There can be no intimacy be­
tween these spheres; at most, an empirical recognition on the
part of the living that death is real, for it has swallowed up
some of "the others." This soldier's mind is clear enough
when he thinks of death and his eye is undazed when he views

rna

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110



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empty, con.

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men will n�1

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The Soldier's Relations To Death

dead bodies, but neither penetrates far. Without communica­
tion with each other, life and death remain powers that exist
side by side, unfathomed and lacking mystery.

An opposite relation to death is possibly more prevalent
among soldiers in modern wars and more understandable to
Americans in general, even if scorned. Here death is an inti­
mate and repugnant enemy before whose threat and presence
one can only flee in terror. There are soldiers in nearly every
unit who can endure every hardship and humiliation of mili­
tary life without flinching, yet cannot face personal danger
with any composure at all. Such soldiers feel that all bullets
are intended for them and every shell likely to land on the
particular spot they have selected as temporary shelter. Insa­
tiable death lurks everywhere ready to pounce upon them, and
everyone of his victims they see makes them the more cer­
tain they will be the next one. These soldiers are quickly found
out in combat and become the butt of their comrades' ridi­
cule and contempt. There is a peculiar derogation in the
epithet "coward" in wartime, for war of course glorifies cour­
age above all other virtues. Hence the men who are unable to
face the prospect of death without terror are so branded and
must endure, at least in military service, insults and con­
tumely of every sort. Few people ask why the coward fears
death excessively or seek to understand the complex motives
underlying his relation to the world or to death. In inquiring
into this relation toward death as one of unreasoning terror
on the part of the soldier-coward, I want to emphasize that
the term "coward" is used in a more restrictive sense than is

commonly done.
It is necessary to distinguish the person who is an occasional

coward in the face of death from the constitutional coward. In

111



THE WARRIORS

almost everyone at times, there is a coward lurking. The litera­
ture of war is replete with instances of elite troops seized with
panic fear, of the bravest soldiers fleeing in terror at some
time in their career. Cowardice in this sense is, like rashness,
a group phenomenon and greatly contagious. When the indi­
vidual is caught unprepared, he becomes a victim of the mass
will, which overflows him and sweeps him away. Students of
mass psychology believe they know when and under what
conditions the individual is likely to respond to these mass
emotions. Commanders of troops can never be sure how their
units will respond to the effect of surprise or close-contact
fighting. But the constitutional coward hardly surprises any­
one; he simply cannot endure combat when personal danger
becomes acute.

Under peaceful conditions, this excessive fear of death
might remain unknown, even to the coward himself, and after
a war the coward is quite capable of concealing or forgetting
it for the further duration of his life. Cowardice, like courage,
is a complex quality, and it does not follow that an excessive
fear of death always colors all other relations a coward sus­
tains to life. In fact, the coward may be a good citizen, a
considerate husband and father, a successful legionnaire. In
most respects he is likely to be a more pleasing peacetime
companion than the man who believes himself indestructible.

As moral courage is distinguishable from physical courage,
a man being capable of possessing the one without the other,
so physical cowardice is different from moral cowardice. Civil­
ian life seldom gives men opportunity to test their capacity
to face death. Doubtless there are thousands who have no idea
whether they are cowards in the military sense. Only when
they come to their deathbed will their fortitude or lack of it
be revealed to themselves, and even there it may be hidden

112



The litera.
seized willi
or at Some
e rashness,
n the inm.
of the ma�
Studenij 01
under wnal

thesem�
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or forgetlln�
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an excessive
cowara �w.

cilizen, �
'onnaire, In

peacelime
aestruclilile,

alcourage,
tilieoilier,
alee, Civil,
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ve no ioea

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lack of it

e hiooen

The Soldier's Relations To Death

because we have learned well how to avoid the issue through
the art and science of medicine.

The coward in battle, however, dies a thousand deaths, as
the proverb has it, and each one is mentally painful beyond
measure. Actually, of course, his physical death is more likely
than is that of the courageous soldier, for he cannot remain
still. Continually he suffers the illusion that another piece of
earth is more secure than the one he presently inhabits. Even
his sleep is troubled, since he follows in his unconscious mind
the sound of incoming or outgoing shells. The slightest change
in direction or distance of firing is sufficient to wake him and
cause him to seek a presumably safer spot elsewhere. Most
veterans have their own memories of this kind of soldier, but
none could be more typical than a companion of mine during
the Italian and French campaigns. This handsome youth, of
Irish descent, first aroused our merriment because he was so
attached to his helmet that he wore it while sleeping, despite
the obvious discomfort. When incoming shells exploded any­
where within miles of us, he would pull a table over his sleep­
ing bag or, more often, get up, cursing horribly, and descend
to the cellar of the building we were using, no matter how
dank, for the remainder of the night. It was his lamentable
fate to land on D day in southern France, and our chafing
was mixed with pity at what Tom had to suffer in prospect.
Fortunately, his landing craft was not fired upon, and, when
our unit was reunited in a chalet a few hundred yards from
shore, we found Tom pale yet reasonably composed. Just then,
however, a German plane came over and released a bomb
which landed squarely, with a terrific explosion, on another
craft nearing the shore. There was great destruction, for the
boat contained, in addition to soldiers, a lot of ammunition,
which exploded at intervals until the boat sank hours later.

113



THE WARRIORS

Though we were at a safe distance from it, Tom immediately
lost his voice. He could not speak above a hoarse whisper for
two or three days. In spite of our horror at the carnage on the
beach, we were forced to laugh at our companion, who could
not refrain from chattering, in a semiaudible croak, the rest
of the evening. Not trusting the security of the chalet for
sleeping, he carried his sleeping bag into a ravine for the
night, and was nearly eaten up by red ants. They were not
sufficient, needless to say, to make him return to the luxury
of a comfortable bed with the rest of our unit.

What is it that this man possessed or lacked that separates
him so sharply from the soldier beside him who could remain
reasonably calm in the presence of danger to his life? I think
the answer can only be that he lacked, above all else, a sense
of union with his fellows. The coward may have comrades,
but they are not able to sustain him emotionally. His relation
to them is not one of depth or inner community. They are
merely part of the external furniture of his life. He is unable
to comprehend those who throwaway their lives from rash­
ness or joy in sacrifice. Indeed, it is impossible for him to
comprehend how other values can equal or surpass the value
of his own life. To all arguments concerning duty, honor, or
the respect of friends, his retort is sure to be: "What do they
matter if I am no longer alive to know about them?" This
question is unanswerable, because for the coward it is no
question but a dogmatic certainty. The Solomonian wisdom
"It is better to be a living dog than a dead lion" exactly fits
his conviction.

If the coward does not know the sense of a common effort
and a common fate, he has, unfortunately, not gained in its
place any strong individuality or any full awareness of self.
It is a fact often enough noticed that people who are deficient

114

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an

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ca



The Soldier's Relatiot:s To Death

in the capacity for love hold onto life with the greatest
tenacity. The coward's fear of death stems in large part from
his incapacity to love anything but his own body with passion.
He is an egotist because he does not possess enough self­
assurance to be an egoist. The inability to participate in
others' lives stands in the way of his developing any inner
resources sufficient to overcome the terror of death. His is

truly a pitiable figure in combat, for fear and danger drive
him more and more into the confines of his own skin and make
him more and more into a mindless body.

This soldier's relation to death is a genuine one, and by
no means negative. Before the dread and monstrous reality,
the coward feels all the frailty and exposure of his existence,
and senses that the struggle is an unequal one. Even tem­
porary survival must be procured by careful stratagems and
by yielding dignity here and there. Death is a personal enemy
of his, a relentless, absolute, all-encompassing enemy. But the
coward's inner poverty of life and love makes him no fit

for nim I� antagonist. I think it must be said that his fear is not to be
, Ine valll� separated from a dim recognition that he belongs to this op-

nonor, or ponent. In spite of himself, death is not remote from his inner
al ao Iner self and all his impulses. The coward, unrelated to his fellows,
fir" Tn!! has an insufficient hold on life and is not in charge of himself
il IS no or his fate. A brave man might fear death as an opponent

n wl�om possessing all the qualities opposite to those which he him-

xact1r n� self possesses. His discipline in the face of this enemy is
governed by the recognition that death is implacable and will

on effort ultimately triumph in an outward sense. But for the coward
ea in ils death is within him. He is related to this most gruesome

of self, enemy, and the more he struggles to escape the greater is his
captivity. When the coward's body is finally yielded up to

115



THE WARRIORS

death, there is nothing instructive or solemn about the spec- it 1
tacle. Few scenes are more deeply unpleasant. COl

to

If the majority of American soldiers find it impossible to 1
attain any other relation to death than that of rejection or ca
negation, we should not hastily conclude that a positive and fic�
acceptive relation is evidence of an unnatural or deviant men- ete
tality. There are soldiers in the Anglo-Saxon world and per- an
haps many more in Teutonic and Slavic lands, to say nothing of
of the Orient, for whom death is a fulfillment. Unless we try sh(
to understand the motivation of this kind of soldier, we can ev
make no claim to grasping the full nature of Homo [urens. of

Here again, however, it is impossible to treat the genus and su
disregard the numerous species. Not all soldiers who find ful- fai
fillment in death seek the same kind of fulfillment, and their
motivations are frequently very diverse. For some, death is
only a means to fulfillment. Thus it is, for example, with the
soldier who sacrifices his life willingly out of love for his
country or for a glorified leader or for an ideal like fascism
or communism. Such a soldier can enter into death in self- ca

forgetfulness and treat it merely as an incident in comparison at
with the reality that fills his being. He uses death as a means
by which to prove his love and devotion to something beyond is
himself. Death is welcomed not for itself, but as a sign of his pI
utter faithfulness. Some leaders can call forth in their men 01
this unbounded eagerness to die for them. The simple soldier th
who obeys such an impulse to self-sacrifice feels in an irra- fl
tional way that his leader will be mightily satisfied with him
for so doing. Any wrath his leader may nurse at a perverse
turn of events will be appeased by this act of selflessness. A
soldier like this steps into death, as it were, with his eyes
fixed elsewhere. He has not thought much or at all about what

116



the spec.

possilile 10
rejection or
positive ana
devianl mfn,
orB ana �r,
o sar noiliin�
r lesswe�
laier, we c�n

o jurertS,
ilie genus ana
wDonnaM
I. ana Ineu

perverse
ness, A

his eyes

�ut whal

The Soldier's Relations To Death

it is like to be dead or what dying signifies, because he is over­
come by enthusiasm for some living ideal or person sufficient
to render his own independent existence of lesser value.

For the deeply religious soldier, on the other hand, death
can be a fulfillment in a very different sense from self-sacri­
fice. If he chances to be a follower of those religions that teach
eternal life, then physical death is a portal for him to a greater
and immeasurably happier life beyond. Though the numbers
of such soldiers have decreased markedly in our century, we
should not forget that thousands of them still take part in
every rnaj or war. I was, in fact, astonished to find how many
of the farewell letters written by those condemned for the un­
successful attempt on Hitler's life in 1944 were pervaded by
faith in a life to come. Sometimes this is a minimal faith, a
forlorn hope, but there can be little doubt that many soldiers
cherish it still. The genuinely otherworldly consciousness, so
much scorned as an escape in recent times, is increasingly
misunderstood by people who take little time for reflection.
Their customary charge that the hope of life after death is
camouflaged egotism and vanity applies only to those who
attempt to use religious faith rather than to be used by it.

For the soldier who is not a foxhole convert to faith, death
is something other than a barrier placed between him and the
painless life on the other side. On the contrary, genuine
otherworldliness regards death as an enemy only so long as
the individual has not discovered his purpose in being alive,
for reaching the goal is no simple process of stepping over a
dark threshold. Death is, instead, a power on earth to be
overcome; it is a last great obstacle and a necessary trial for
the pilgrim on life's way. In the end it will prove, of course,
to be a veil of illusion to the faithful one, but he must over­

come the world to learn this secret. His proper posture will

117



THE WARRIORS

be to meet death face-to-face and gain the assurance that the iI
closer he comes the more peaceful and indeed joyous his al
journey. If anyone doubts that such people can confront death
with serenity and cheer, let him read the communications of m
true believers condemned to die and awaiting execution. Their of
one concern is commonly those who are left behind without
the calm and peace that they, the condemned, have won.

Perhaps I can state this otherworldly relation to death in al
more concrete form. Death is a fulfillment, not in the sense of C�
a consummation, but as the final triumph of the spirit over the C�
forces that would hinder it from life everlasting. There are, s�
to be sure, some kinds of otherworldliness that conceive of w
trials continuing after death, when the soul is in purgatory, m
but there any aid it receives must be external to it and not c(
something that the soul can itself accomplish. Rather than w
being a barrier between me and true bliss, death is the path f�
that brings me there when I have learned to tread it. Christian in
and non-Christian otherworldliness are at one in teaching that cI
life is a process of overcoming the natural and instinctive. A
rebirth is required, a change in direction which is radical,
to the point where life will not be considered any longer as
self-sustaining or self-explanatory, but, rather, as a gift that
is redeemable by the giver at any moment under any condi-
tion. Those who are born again to the spirit, as the Christian
puts it, regard death as that part of life which does not belong
to one's essence.

The religious man is constantly dying to those aspects of
self and the world that becloud the true eternal existence.
Physical death is only the final stage in a long-continued
struggle to overcome "the world." In this sense, otherworldli­
ness regards death as a fulfillment of life's mission in this
world; death is what the believer has been constantly surpass-

118



The Soldier's Relations To Death

ing. When physical death approaches, it is easy to enter into
and full of promise. For some it is the final stripping away
of the self and its tiny concerns, all that is particular and
merely personal. Others regard death as the final purification
of the self, freeing it from what remains of all imperfections
and blemishes.

Can the otherworldly soldier who is caught up in action
and thrown together with violent men preserve his peacetime
convictions of death as a final conquest? Or is not this whole
conception and mentality peculiar to older and more weary
spirits, as many assert? The answer is, I think, that other­
worldliness is as likely to flourish among men at war as among
men at peace. If there is a difference, it lies in the fact that
combat matures men quickly and perhaps particularly in their
ways of regarding life and death. There may be more time
for thinking and more loneliness in foxholes at the front than
in secure homes, and time is measured in other ways than by
clocks and calendars. For soldiers who have entered military
service with a firm otherworldly faith, there is frequently little
difficulty in continuing to regard death as they did before, and
the violence all about may well strengthen, rather than weaken,
their convictions. On the other hand, soldiers whose religious
faith is chiefly this-worldly, that is, social and ethical in con­
tent, often find war's destruction wreaking havoc with their
belief.

The otherworldly soldier may prudently seek to stay alive
aspec� 01 as long as the worldly one. Unless he is a fanatic, he tries to
existence, listen to inner commands before acting rashly. But the dif-

�ontiDuea ference becomes apparent when the chances of surviving a
envorI&i· given engagement are reduced and death becomes as nearly

in tb� certain as it ever does in combat. Then such an otherworldly
surpass- soldier rarely cringes from his fate, does not become de-

119



THE WARRIORS

spondent or bitterly reproachful of others. Inwardly he may
he exultant or simply collected. What is coming has been de­
termined by greater and wiser forces than he commands, and
he is content to repeat: "Thy will be done" or its equivalent.
The destroyers of such soldiers are astounded at how
"bravely" they die and are sometimes deeply shaken by it. It
seems to be contrary to nature. But the steadfastness of that
will which is fixed on a life beyond death can endure the pain
of dying and sumetimes achieve exaltation in the act.

There is another element that commonly makes death easier
for such a soldier . For the otherworldly Christian, at least,
there is a contradiction in combat and a fearful moral peril.
He is conscious of the pacifistic injunctions of his faith and
has not been able, in all likelihood, to make the easy dis­
tinctions between destroying life in pe�ce and in war that
governments insist upon. Even though he may have privately
determined that no one shall fall by his hand, his conscience
seldom leaves him in peace. The Biblical dictum that "all who
take the sword will perish by the sword" has persuaded him,
perhaps, that it is no more than just that he should leave his
young life in this unholy war.

This is also particularly true for the soldier whose religious
search is not guided by life after death, hut is strongly moral.
Death can become for him, a participant in what he considers
the crime of warfare, a way of atonement, especially appropri­
ate, even if insufficient. Though he cannot greet death joy­
ously, as one expecting a great translation into the eternal,
he can greet it calmly and inwardly at peace as the path to a
mind at one with itself.

Occasionally on the battlefield one is haunted by the face
of a dead soldier on which there is stamped a kind of un­
earthly serenity. I remember a handsome young German

120

sold
by t
few
bree
trave

body
held
featu
on a

how
exec

necK
and

I

rouu
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thro

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era

scie�
mor1unue
meal
�e�

I!

reje
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tho



he may
been de.

ands, ana
quivalent.

at how
en by it.!!
ess of tna!
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he act.

conscien�
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uaded n�,
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I
the face

d of un·

German

The Soldier's Relations To Death

soldier, near the end of World War II, who had been hanged
by the SS troops, possibly because he wanted to surrender a
few hours earlier than they. His body was swaying in the
breeze beneath a tree along the road on which my jeep was
traveling. I stopped and cut the rope that held him. As his
body fell to the earth, face upward, my gaze was caught and
held for some minutes by the expression on his regular
features. Seldom have I seen a look of greater inner happiness
on a human face, dead or alive. It was hard to understand
how he could have maintained such an expression, for his
executioners had hardly granted him the mercy of a broken
neck. He had no other wound, and everything about his person
and uniform was in perfect order.

I could not rid myself of the conviction that, despite his
youth and the approaching end of hostilities, he had suffered
gladly this death by execution at the hands of his own people.
If in this particular case it is a supposition that cannot be con­
firmed, we do have evidence of other German soldiers who
voluntarily escaped torments of conscience in Hitler's war
through death brought about by his hired killers. The per­
ceptive among them knew well enough that dying does not
erase guilt, but they also knew that it is the most that con­
science and religious faith can demand in situations where
more appropriate atonement is not available. We need be
under no illusions that only enemy nationals sought similar
means of atonement, though the number in any army is not
great.

Is there not a relationship to death different from either
rejection as an abhorred enemy or acceptance as a path to
fulfillment or expiation? Is there not a relationship that,
though not so common, is closer to representing the essence

121



THE WARRIORS

of the fighting man? I think so, but to characterize it is not
easy. This attitude is more concrete and objective, as a rule,
less conventional and perhaps less emotional than the ones I
have been concerned with thus far. First let me attempt a
general statement of this relation to death and then tum to
examples, which are in effect subspecies, or different varieties,
of the type.

As a consequence of temperament and experience, some
soldiers can learn to regard death as an anticipated experience
among other experiences, something they plan to accept when
the time comes for what it is. They take death into life, as
it were, and seek to make it a part of experience, sometimes
winning thereby an intimate relationship. Because they re­
spect death as a power and do not fear it as a blind fate, they
are able to reckon their chances in warfare with greater calm­
ness than other soldiers. For them, death is as much a self­
evident fact as birth, and they regard as foolish the man who
refuses to accept the one as the other. Since moral or re­
ligious considerations hardly occupy first rank with such sol­
diers, they are unlikely to choose death as a means or an end
to self-improvement or atonement. However, the more imagina­
tive and thoughtful of this type do regard death as that ab­
solute in human existence which gives life its poignancy and
intensity. They do not desire to live forever, for they feel that
this would be a sacrifice of quality to gain quantity. In phil­
osophical terms, such soldiers are affirming human finiteness
and limitation as a morally desirable fact. Just as the bliss
of erotic love is conditioned by its transiency, so life is sweet
because of the threats of death that envelop it and in the end
swallow it up. Men of this sort are usually in love with life
and avid for experience of every sort.

Indeed, experience is the word that best stamps a kind of

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122



The Soldier's Relations To Death

unity on a diverse group. Their common relation to death is
that of regarding it as neither friend nor foe, but as a possibility
for a supreme kind of experience. The less reflective members
of this group would certainly never describe this relation in
deliberate terms like these; on the contrary, they scorn such
verbalizing. Action is their element, and their hearts are in
the future as it enfolds itself every day. They look out upon
the world as adventure and upon themselves as capable of
storming all its ramparts. They are not naive enough to re­
gard themselves as indestructible, and do not even desire to
be. What they desire is experience, and the fuller and more
intense that experience is, the more content they are. War
offers them something that peace cannot: the opportunity to
telescope much experience into short compass. If death be the
issue, they are normally fatalists by instinct and can accept it
more calmly than the prospect of a boring, empty period in
their lives.

Perhaps the least complicated of this type is the dashing,
reckless soldier whose perennial charm consists in his devil..
may-care attitude toward all the solemn rituals of military
protocol. All men at war have known one or two such
soldiers and doubtless have blessed them in their hearts.

Normally, such a carefree youth is not very curious about the
end of his life, though keenly aware that living is sweet be ..
cause life is fragile and ringed by danger. If he did reflect
on death, he would doubtless be in accord with the sentiments
of Feeble in the Second Part of Shakespeare's Henry the

ife is sweet Fourth:
I in the ena
e wiili Ule By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a

death..•. And let it go which way it will, he that dies this year

a kina 01
is quit for the next.

te it is no!
�, as a rule)
l the ones I
,e attempt I
then turn t�

rent varie!l�)

nence) 10m!
ede�rien�

to acce�t w�e�
lli inlo Iile) &
ee, somellln�
ause ilier �
!ina fale)�e1
grealercal
mucn a ��,
ilie man w��

or an en�

123



THE WARRIORS

To the otherworldly soldier, a man like this is incompre-
hensible, explainable only as an unawakened one; to the of
coward, he is an utter fool; to the soldier who can face mortal so
danger only in a daze, he is a subject for admiration and es
puzzlement. It does not occur to many of them that this care- de
lessness about his life stems from overabundance of it. Con-

sequently, he values other things more highly than life, above ot
all, adventure and full experience. If he were careful and
circumspect with his life, most of the joy in living would be
gone, for guarding the Harne is a way of keeping it from full
brilliance. When such a soldier acquires a family and civilian
responsibilities, he usually loses some of his gaiety and reck-
lessness. Yet death can never be to him what it is to most other inl
soldiers, for without much reflection he has made it a part of
life, and his response to it will be of a piece with his other tn
responses. His is an affirmation of death but without the

pathos of the average man or soldier. War is a game for him,
exciting and dangerous because a man may strike out or foul
out at any time. Such possibilities make both life and war
worth the effort expended.

It is tempting and easy to make such a soldier appear more
complicated than he is. Much of what I have already made �o
explicit is with him simply implicit and impulse. He does not oj
consciously know why he is careless and lighthearted about ili
his life nor why he sets such value upon new experience. He

1
is what he is for no reason, self-analysis and reflection being onamong the things he prizes least. Yet his very simplicity is
hard to understand. The absence of love as concern for pre-
serving his own and other life makes him seem slightly in-
human. And his innocence of any conventional moral inhibi-
tions, his lack of any real stake in the conservation of existing
goods, reinforces this impression.

124



� incompre.
Dne; to ili�
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The Soldier's Relations To Death

The soldier as lighthearted adventurer may still be a figure
of charm and romance in our modern wars. He possesses what
so many lack and wish they had. But he troubles us, too, and
especially so when we become reflective. His attitude toward
death evokes, I think, our admiration whether we are at peace
or war. But his irresponsibility toward society and toward all
other values except personal experience cannot but perpetuate
most of the evils of our tradition. Frankly, I find myself
morally confused by him, both when I knew his like in war
and now in memory and meditation. Of one thing I am sure,
this kind of soldier or man will be of small service in the

struggle to eliminate war. Without wishing it, his nature is too
intoxicated by war's promise of intense, forbidden experience.

In some sense, the counterpart of the soldier-adventurer is
the more serious professional soldier whose relation to death
is governed by the feeling of fate. Death will come to him, he
reasons, when the time is ripe and will, he hopes, afford him
the opportunity to show himself worthy and unafraid. Some­
times he hopes that death will come to him in full career, that
he can die with his boots on, as the phrase has it, for the
fatalistic soldier wants to face death as he has faced danger
so many times, with a calm, matter-of-fact air. The proper
discipline in the event of leaving one's life is, for him, no other
than the discipline needed to master life itself. Such a soldier
may seem cold and heartless to those around him, without
being so in fact. He may be moved deeply enough, but has
no intention of letting others see anything that looks like
weakness. Duty is, for this professional, the highest value,
and courage in performance of his duty is a shining ideal.
Death must not be shunned if the interests of duty and honor
require it, however unpleasant dying may be. It cannot be
avoided, in any event, when your number comes up.

125



THE WARRIORS

Such a soldier cannot be gay or reckless about death, for
he has not taken life in that way. But, like the adventurous to
soldier, he does not consider it alien or apart from his life, be2
either. He seeks to look upon death soberly and objectively, roo
as a normal hazard, to be avoided if possible but never at any fat,
cost. Even when such a professional has a premonition of his co
imminent death, it does not change his actions at all, as the feso
literature of war makes clear. He takes great pride in per- his
forming as usual to the end. For example, in a few of the oro
letters from Stalingrad, professional army sons writing to their ael
German fathers, also of high military rank, could not refrain attl
from a formal farewell, taking final leave of their fathers as pr!
they would announce, with appropriate salute, their departure res
for another post. To die was their last mission, and they were
on orders here as elsewhere. Never fear that the orders would sit
not be carried out. tin

It can be said, I think rightly, that this type of soldier has ret
taken death into life and made the end of life a piece with pr
the rest of it. Unlike the carefree adventurer, this is for him cI
customarily a conscious process. He has thought about death ev
and dying, and his discipline in daily life is partly a conse-
quence of this fact. That is, he strives to build up in himself tn
an inner fortress that will be impregnable to the worst as- P
saults. As a professional soldier, he becomes aware early that
the trial of death is normally the ultimate trial the military
life can ask of its own. Hence he fortifies himself with the
sentiments military men have endorsed for ages, again well
expressed by Shakespeare, in Coriolanus:

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

126



death, for
dventurous
In hislileI
objectivelr,

never at anr
nition of�
at all, as�!
pride in �ro
a few 01 �I
iTitingtollilu
uld not retrirn

eir {allie�ru
eir departure

and ilier WIll
orders wolli�

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ya COD.!&

in him��
e worst 8J.

early iliit
e military

� lriili ilif
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�;

The Soldier's Relations To Death

This fatalism about the day and the hour may be thought
to be rationalization, a way of making the ordeal easier to
bear. But I believe it stems more often than not from other
motives. Though others than professional soldiers may be
fatalists, of course, this view of death appears to be especially
congenial to the military mind. The reason is that the pro­
fessional soldier feels the need to reduce the capriciousness of
his world as much as possible. He chooses to conceive an
orderly universe with stable and traditional values, in which
death must have its rank and time like everything else. In this
attempted reduction of all things to the matter of fact and
predictable, the fatalistic soldier does not lose his subjective
responses, but they do become subordinated. Hence, when his
time comes to die, he tends to be governed by the objective
situation more than by his feelings. In effect, he can some­
times say: "My passing is an event, too, like all others to be
recorded in the proper 'morning reports.' It would have been
predictable had I had the necessary data available." He con­
cludes that there is nothing haphazard about the progress of
events, whatever the outward appearance may be.

That the course of war is as wayward and unpredictable as
the imaginations of men is a conviction as old as the ancient
Pericles. But how many professional military men ever accept
it? On the contrary, the world they inhabit, both outer and
inner, must be governed by iron laws, and any individual fate
is an insignificant part of a universal determinism. It is prob­
ably undeniable that dying is easier for one who holds fast
to such a faith, but we have no reason to conclude that this
is the reason the fatalist holds it.

Much more self-conscious and articulate, yet probably still
of the same species, is the relation to death that certain poetic
and philosophic natures win through war. For them, the hover-

127



THE WARRIORS

ing presence of death becomes intimately experienced reality,
whereby life gains not only in poignancy but also in creative
possibility. Death's finality and certainty can even become a
hold and a stay in the threatening chaos of feeling. Perhaps
for this reason poets write so much of death, and war poets
frequently become obsessed with the subject. They are at­
tracted to death as the moth is to the flame. In the war poems
of a Rupert Brooke, for example, death is longed for as the
only possibility of giving life authenticity and creative power.

This kind of soldier can gain an intimacy with death denied
to the less imaginative. He knows from experience that all
creation is a kind of dying, in the sense that every experience
to which he has given poetic form has been left behind him
forever. In the maelstrom of conflict this soldier believes he
is experiencing the very pulse of life in its dedication to death.
Sometimes he falls in love with death rather than with life,
though when this happens he betrays his creative talents, or
at least weakens them, for it is life that is being compressed
and intensified and rendered genuine by death's presence.
Means and ends dare not be confused here, though they some­
times are. If his creative nature is strong enough to resist the
temptations, the poet can frequently find fulfillment of his life
in combat, as he might never have found it at home. The
heightened awareness of man's transience, vulnerability, and
proud courage, which the poet experiences in warfare, can
reconcile him to his fate and even promote a love for it.

Philosophical poets, like philosophical soldiers in general,
are capable of anticipating death as an adventure in knowl­
edge. This extends also in some cases to the experience of
dying. The poet Browning in the well-known poem "Prospice"
speaks of dying as "one fight more, the best and the last!"
and proclaims himself as a fighter who would not want to

hav
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128



mced realitr,
10 in creativ!
{en become!
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and war poe�
They are ii,

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'\h death aeni�

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every experien�
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ent of hisllll

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perience 01
"Prospice"
the las!!"

The Soldier', Relations To Death

have"death bandage his eyes" and bid him creep past. On the
contrary, he wants to bear the brunt of the struggle of dying
and so anticipate what lies beyond. Such a relationship to
death is a combination of heroic acceptance and intellectual
eagerness for knowledge. Hence, the philosophical poet can
appease both the emotional and intellectual drives of his being.
Though the ability to look upon one's own death as a chance
to learn what has been hitherto denied may not be widely
shared, it' is an element, surely, in all the more rational atti­
tudes toward death. There are men with an insatiable curi­

osity about what it is like to be dead.
The French philosopher Descartes, who spent his youth as

a hired soldier under foreign Hags, is reported to have said
on his deathbed that he was about to experience what he had
long eagerly wished to know. And Socrates, who as a soldier
had looked death in the face more than once, could not con­
ceal his curiosity about the experience of dying and the pos­
sibility of a transformation of life beyond death. The love of
knowledge, so rarely found in its pure state, can, neverthe­
less, impel men of superior mentality to regard death as a
boundary they' should transgress in order to see whether it in
turn may be bounded. For them, the unknown is neither un­
canny nor frightening. It is, above all, interesting. Death
may hold the solution to the riddles of existence, and some­
thing within them will not accept resignation to human
finitude. They must burst the bonds and gain some firsthand
experience of this encompassing presence into which they see
so many entering daily. Such a relation to death can be won
in peace as well as in war, I realize, but unless human beings
are pushed to the extreme, we are not so likely to confront
simple and primal realities.

129



 



FIVE

IMAGES

OF THE

ENEMY

I am quite uncertain of the date, and, as a matter of fact, 0/
many other things. But I do know that I am very tired tonight,
that it is raining outside, and that I am sitting in a dingy hotel
room, somewhere in France, writing this by candlelight-German
candlelight, incidentally, since here in France we use much aban­
doned equipment and food. Sometimes the sheets on the hotel beds
don't get changed between German and American occupation.
Perhaps last night or night before a German officer sat where I
now sit writing to a friend in Germany. Perhaps, too, he is the one
I saw lying along the road today with hands neatly folded over
the chest, one of the few corpses I have seen who didn't look alto­
gether horrible. And the French officer with me spoke gleefully in
German: "So miichte ich sie alle sehen" (I'd like to see them aU
this way). So is the war here. (War journal, September 12 (?),
1944)

The basic aim of a nation at war in establishing an image of
the enemy is to distinguish as sharply as possible the act of

131



THE WARRIORS

killing from the act of murder by making the former into one
deserving of all honor and praise. If twentieth-century wars
were not such desperate conflicts, we might be satisfied to
regard destroying the enemy as morally neutral and so avoid
the extreme discontinuity between the morality of war and
peace. In fact, the distinction between taking life in battle at
the command of the state and taking life as a private citizen at
one's own will is a customary distinction with which Western
civilization has managed these many centuries. Unfortunately,
modem war has changed its character so greatly that the old
distinction no longer satisfies. Previously, armed forces and
civilian populations were reasonably distinct. Now, combat
men, particularly artillerymen and fliers, find themselves de­
stroying women and children as well as armed opponents; in­
deed, whole populations come more and more to be regarded
as legitimate objects of annihilation.

With the disappearance of accepted standards of military
ethics--what we used to call "chivalry"-restraints on the way
the enemy's will to resist is broken down have disappeared.
Even in democratic lands, soldiers are systematically trained
"to fight dirty," which means to disregard all civilian rules
of fair play. "Never give your enemy a chance" is the byword
of this training. The baseness and inhumanity of such tactics
commonly shock the recruit at first, but fear and hatred aid
greatly in their early acceptance. Nowadays, we quickly reach,
by the benefit of propaganda, that terribly simplified morality
with a single absolute: "Any act that helps my side win the
war is right and good, and any act that hinders it is wrong and
bad." This drive toward moral absolutism of a totalitarian sort
affects all other aspects of warfare in our age. Restraints and
restrictions are falling away everywhere. Thus, the typical
image of the enemy is conditioned by the need to hate him

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132



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Images of the Enemy
without limits. War has lost its former character of a deadly
game, and becomes increasingly a struggle for national sur­
vival, in which all moral principles except the one concerning
victory are strategic instruments.

Most soldiers are able to kill and be killed more easily in
warfare if they possess an image of the enemy sufficiently evil
to inspire hatred and repugnance. In this century, when mili­
tary enemies .hecome friends and friends become enemies with
bewildering rapidity, agencies of public opinion are taxed to
manipulate mass emotions in ways beneficial to national sur­
vival. All forward-looking governments have learned to rate
psychological preparations for war as of equal importance, at
least, with the physical training of citizens and soldiers. As a
consequence, the image of the enemy a contemporary soldier
takes with him to the front is certain to be a synthetic product
of the mass media, more or less consciously instilled in him
by his government to make him a better fighter. When radi­
cally altered political needs force a reversal of this image a
few years later, governments are greatly aided by modern
forgetfulness and bewilderment at the complexity of political
change. The capacity of most of us to pursue a continuous
thread through the welter of events is severely limited. We
strive to keep an equilibrium amid a thousand impressions
and to make sense of our world by elimination when it be­
comes impossible to do so by synthesis. Hence, we can often
be persuaded by the mass media to hold an opinion opposite
to the one held a few years ago, without remembering that it
is the opposite.

We do well to reflect for a moment on the term "the enemy"
as it is used in wartime. Its meaning is as protean and diverse
as can be, ranging all the way from a purely formal designa­
tion of a military adversary to the emotional expression of

133



THE WARRIORS

greatest detestation. Always, the definite article is used with
the noun, not an enemy or our enemy. The implication easily
drawn is that the opponent is mankind's enemy as well as ours,
and also that this enemy is a specific, though undifferentiated
group, an implication that is only pseudo-concrete. That is, by
reference to the enemy we seem to mean a unified, concrete
universal, whereas in fact the enemy is probably not more uni­
fied than is our side and possesses many other characteristics
than those that are hostile to us. By designating him with the
definite article, it is made to appear that he is single and his
reality consists in hostility to us. Thus do the moral ab­
solutisms of warfare develop through the medium of language,
and, all unconsciously, we surrender reason to the emotional
contagion of the communal.

The abstractness of the term promotes in this emotion­
drenched atmosphere of war the growth of abstract hatred. I
think it is abstract hatred and not the greater savagery of con­

temporary man that is responsible for much of the blood lust
and cruelty of recent wars. This word "abstract" signifies in
origin to "draw out from," to take from any larger whole one
particular feature or aspect. The opposite of "abstract" is, of
course, "concrete," which in its fullest sense still means to
examine anything in its entirety, together with its relations
to other things. Hence, abstract hatred arises from concen­
trating on one trait of a person or group while disregarding
other features, not to speak of the larger context in which all
the traits coexist and modify each other. The simplification of
abstract thinking is strictly comparable to the inhumanity of
abstract emotions, particularly abstract hatred.

Intellectually, all of us can grant that the reality and truth
of a human being can only be found in his total environment,
including his past and his inner motives. It is possible to know

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134



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Images oj the Enemy
a person concretely and still hate him, but such hatred is much
rarer and of a very different quality. In a sense, hatred is
nearly always abstract to some degree, since as a passion it
is unable to view anyone or anything in entirety. The hatred
that arises for the enemy in wartime, whether it be for Nazis,
Communists, or Capitalists, for White, Yellow, or Black, is
peculiarly one-sided, for it is a fear-filled image. The enemy is
not an individual man or woman, but a hostile power intent

upon destroying our people and our lives. Our unreflective
response is normally total enmity for the image of evil that
possesses our imagination.

As the war progresses, we are hardened and consumed by
this hatred of a shadowy image. The farther we are from
dangerous contact with this image, the more we are consumed
by it. A civilian far removed from the battle area is nearly
certain to be more bloodthirsty than the front-line soldier
whose hatred has to be responsible, meaning that he has to
respond to it, to answer it with action. Many a combat soldier
in World War II was appalled to receive letters from his girl
friend or wife, safe at home, demanding to know how many
of the enemy he had personally accounted for and often re­
questing the death of several more as a personal favor for her!

Similarly, soldiers who cherished concrete emotions found
the moral atmosphere at the front so much more endurable
than in rear areas that they willingly accepted the greater
strain and personal danger of combat. Progression in abstract
hatred was detectable at every level, from company to regi­
ment to division to army and farther back. As one approached
the combat area, relations between officers and men became

more natural and functional; the spit and polish of army book
discipline disappeared. Though I did not understand the
reasons then as well as I now do, a letter I wrote in February

135



THE WARRIORS

1945 expresses the facts of this transformation concisely
enough: kn

and

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... You would be amazed at the changed aspect of military rules
and regulations in frontal areas. Everything assumes a personal
aspect. "The book" is pretty much thrown out the window, par­
ticularly in the experienced units, and it becomes "Who do you
know?" and "What can you get away with?" This is particularly
true in our service. There is a surprising lack of orders from
above; each man becomes more or less his own authority. The
amount of individual responsibility is both frightening and heart­
ening. Some of us have become very resourceful as a consequence,
which is, of course, all to the good. . . . The GI aspects have
almost all fallen away, and we work with each other from cor­
porals to colonels on pretty much an equal basis. The farther bach
one is, of course, the less true this becomes.

pgh
an4

Equally important, the enemy, too, seemed nearly human
and, like us, tired, and fearful of his life. Reduction of physi­
cal distance did not necessarily reduce psychical distance, I
suppose, but there was usually a relationship, startling enough
in character. To be sure, much of the improvement in spiritual
climate was undoubtedly due to the presence of danger and
not to a concretizing of the image of the enemy. Hand-to-hand
combat grows increasingly rare in our century. Modern weap­
ons keep hostile armies at an ever-greater distance from each
other, as a rule. I realize that thousands of soldiers fired in­
cessantly in recent wars without once seeing their targets, and
bombardiers destroyed uncounted lives with no conception of
the manner of people who were cowering under the falling
bombs. Only after a modern war is past and the victorious
army is occupying the land of the conquered is the image of
the enemy really rendered concrete, and by that time he is
likely to be no longer an enemy.

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136



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Images of the Enemy

Nevertheless, one opportunity the front-line soldier has to
know the enemy as a human being is when he takes prisoners,
and this is frequently a crucial experience for soldiers. The
prisoner of war reveals to his opponent that he, too, cherishes
life and that he has at least a minimal trust in your humanity,
otherwise he would not be surrendering. The soldier who has
taken, or himself been made, a prisoner of war will inevitably
be a changed man and fighter. His foe has been demonstrated
to be comprehensible and of the same stuff, at least out­
wardly, as he himself is made of. I once wrote of this:

While we were waiting there and listening to the sound of the
fighting a few hundred yards away, the chatter of machine guns
and heavier artillery, German prisoners began to come in.•.. For
an hour [l searched them for weapons]. As J talked to these
soldiers, J found no hatred for them. • •• But later, when our
own infantry soldiers came up the road and advanced into the
line, J felt the same attachment to these uncomplaining men who
were covered with sweat and grime, had marched far and for
many days, fighting most of the way and with few prospects.
They were carrying heavy burdens but none complained. Truly, a
mad warfare.

An incident that happened in my presence in Italy during
the war illustrates perfectly what I have in mind. A certain
infantry division, freshly committed to a sector of the front,
had transformed its band unit into military police in charge
of prisoners of war. I happened to be at the prisoner cage
shortly after these music-loving soldiers had received their
first batch of prisoners. A group of these youths stood, guns
at the ready and very tense, facing the disarmed Germans in
a stable of an old farmhouse. They were half expecting the
captives at any moment to snarl and spring upon them. As
soldiers fresh from the United States, their image of all Ger-

137



THE WARRIORS

mans was that they were treacherous and fanatical storm Bel
troopers. For their part, the captured soldiers were apparently JD1
glad to be prisoners, though they, too, were apprehensive dis
about the menacing rifles. so

We stared at one another with a confused mixture of hos- mo
tility and fear, all alike victims of ignorance. Suddenly I heard ch
some of the prisoners humming a tune under their breath. fill
Four who were a trained quartet and had contrived to be cap- all
tured together started to sing. Within a few minutes, the
transformation in the atmosphere of that stable was complete, SID
and amusing, too, in retrospect. The rifles were put down,
some of them within easy reach of the captives. Everybody
clustered closer and began to hum the melodies. Cigarettes
were offered to the prisoners, snapshots of loved ones were dis-
played, and fraternization proceeded at a rapid rate. When the Iw
commanding officer, just as new to combat as his men, arrived sol
on the scene, he was speechless with fury and amazement. The en
contrast between abstract image and this glimpse of reality Qe
could hardly have been more striking. DO

k�
However shadowy and unknown in their essential nature De

enemy soldiers remain for the man in combat, their physical
nearness forces a change in his abstract image of them, even QI
if not necessarily in the way of concreteness. They are no
longer one vast and undifferentiated power of evil, but more
detached centers of violence and danger who must be resisted RI
and destroyed if possible by himself and comrades. Very often
his abstract hatred is changed by degrees into personal hatred.
Are they not responsible for the hard, uncomfortable life he
is forced to lead ? Were it not for them he would be at home
with his wife or girl friend, enjoying his favorite food or sport
or other amusement. His mood may become one of deep re·

138



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Imagel oj the Enemy
sentment or smoldering anger against the cause of his present
misery. He wants to make them pay for this long-continued
disruption of his life, "they" being not the enemy in general
so much as that group opposite his position at the front. The
more cramped, painful, and unbearable his physical and psy­
chological environment becomes, the more he is likely to be
filled with a burning vengeance, which demands action for its
alleviation.

When the soldier has lost a comrade to this enemy or pos­
sibly had his family destroyed by them through bombings or
through political atrocities, so frequently the case in World
War II, his anger and resentment deepen into hatred. Then
the war for him takes on the character of a vendetta. Until he
has himself destroyed as many of the enemy as possible, his
lust for vengeance can hardly be appeased. I have known
soldiers who were avid to exterminate every last one of the

enemy, so fierce was their hatred. Such soldiers took great
delight in hearing or reading of mass destruction through
bombings. Anyone who has known or been a soldier of this
kind is aware of how hatred penetrates every fiber of his

being. His reason for living is to seek revenge; not an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but a tenfold retaliation. I
described one of these men in my journal:

He said that he would not be happy until every German was
killed-said it in a careless, offhand manner and with a laugh
told how he was complaining this morning about too many pris­
oners being brought in and the soldier who had brought one said,
"I am doing my best, sir, I started with six!" The others laughed.
I thought: It is the fortunes of war. Those who were shot might
have expected it. I need not feel sorry for them. But for those who
want people killed because it will spare them work and because
they cherish revenge . . . for those I feel sorrow and also anger.

139



THE WARRIORS

Understandable as this hatred is, it would nonetheless be
false to think of it as concrete because motivated by personal
grievance. Such a soldier's hatred would be concrete only if
it were directed toward the immediately guilty party, or group,
who was conscious of and responsible for his evil deed. For
example, a Jewish soldier might cherish a concrete hatred
for the Nazi police charged with persecuting his family and
perhaps could concretely hate the convinced members of the
whole Nazi party. But the soldier burning with vengeance
feelings has commonly made a vast extension of his personal
hatred to all who speak the language and wear the uniform
of the enemy. To him, they become all alike and to kill one
is as good as to kill any other. Hence, he is not fighting men
but embodiments of undifferentiated evil. The change in him
is not so much a result of a new relationship toward the
enemy as it is an emotional response to loss and exposure.
He has not really broken through the barrier of the abstract.
All that he has done is to give his enmity for the antagonists
a new spring from which to drink. Instead of the enemy, they
have become my enemies.

No one should underestimate the cruelty and the delight in
cruelty when a soldier-or a civilian-is impelled by such
personal, abstract hatred. For this reason, civil wars are usu­
ally replete with refinements of personal torture and are com­
monly more terrible than international wars. Yet, paradoxical

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... Coming up this morning we saw an Italian youth lying in a
field close by the road, crumpled up in death. Further on, a
German soldier with face black and distended sprawled in death
behind a straw stack; farther on still, was a horribly mangled
soldier on the road with our vehicles passing over him. There was
some artillery fire, and shells landed not far away, but I was not
much frightened. Slowly I am becoming insensitive to everything.

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140



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Images of the Enemy
as it may seem, personal hatred even of this sort carries with
it more possibility of humaneness than does abstract hatred
where no personal injury has been suffered and where the
hater is without responsibility and not in danger. The combat
soldier knows that the figures opposite him are in some sense
responsible for his plight, even if they have done him no
personal wrong. They would kill him if they could, as they
have killed friends of his. Of that he is sure. That they may
justly cherish the same sentiments toward him is a possi­
bility that may occur to the combat man at any moment. And
this possibility-namely, the justice of the enemy soldier's
position vis-it-vis you as an individual-can effect a radical
change in the relationship. The recognition of a common hu­
manity, sinful and pathetic, is not at all remote in this situa­
tion. Soldiers of opposite sides, dying together in the same
shell hole, have frequently transcended their hatred and ended
their war in reconciliation. Anything is possible through the
recognition of your enemy's common humanity, even if it
leads to fierce rejection of him. Close friendships have arisen
from bitter enmities more than once, and these friendships
have been fruitful and especially dear. But from abstract
hatred, which remains remote from action and danger, only
blank forgetfulness can result and an unrelenting heart which
weakens the sympathies of its possessor.

To designate as abstract the usual images of the enemy is,
of course, only a beginning toward understanding why men so
readily kill and get killed in wartime. Abstractions are of dif­
ferent orders. There were four common attitudes toward the

enemy held by soldiers of recent wars. Three of them will be
found to be abstract in the extreme, the fourth of a different

order altogether. Though separated for purposes of under­
standing, no one would assert that these attitudes are distinct

141



THE WARRIORS

in individual soldiers. Actually, most of us probably held in
the course of our combat service two or more of them, possibly
also others that I did not myself experience or observe. Those
I want to reflect upon are exceedingly common, and have an
important effect not only upon the character of the soldiers
cherishing them, but upon the historical situation of our age
as well.

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One of the most time-honored and persistent images of the
enemy, today very suspect in democratic lands, is the one
held by the professional soldier, who regards all military men
as comrades in arms. What are the essential features of this
attitude? It is governed in the first instance by the profession..
aI's concept of his task in war. War is his vocation, however
hard he may have hoped in long years of peacetime service
that it would not come. He is entrusted with a task, or a mis­
sion, in military vocabulary, and it is all-important to him
that the mission be successfully accomplished. As a technolo­
gist of war, the professional asks himself: "How am I to ful­
fill my mission?" The enemy has to be outwitted, outmaneu­
vered, and outkilled. He is a human obstacle to be overcome
on the way to a clearly defined objective. If the professional
is a regular officer of some rank, he has spent the years of
peace overcoming an imaginary enemy in simulated cam­
paigns, and this experience dominates his mind on the field of
battle. He feels not unlike the captain of a football team pitted
against the opponent. The enemy is for him at first only a
concentration of capabilities, probable plans, and troop dispo­
sitions. To learn as much about him as you can while keeping
him ignorant of yourself and your intentions is a fundamental
task. For the professional military man, battles are still huge
games, man's greatest sport, an ancient feeling he finds diffi..

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142



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Images 0/ the Enemy
cult to resist, even if it does conflict with the dominant ide­
ology of our day and even if wars do become less and less
like sports in their consequences.

The professional as a technologist likes to regard himself as
an instrument of the state. Though he has natural sympathies
and antipathies for this or that foreign people, he can suppress
these feelings and adopt a hostile attitude toward any state
not his own-on orders. As an "arm" and not the "head" of
the state, the professional soldier often prides himself on being
nonpolitical. This frees him, he feels, to act in war without
regard for consequences other than the military. Responsibility
must be clearly defined and portioned out; it is always a mat­
ter for angry puzzlement on his part that such definition and
apportionment are rarely possible in actual combat. As a
specialist in warfare, he wants none of the half-light and
dubiety of morals and politics in his profession. He desires to
be under orders and to know what is expected of him all the
time. Since war is so much simpler if played according to
rules, he yearns for the security and stability of formal prin­
ciples in fighting.

His attitude toward his opponent is likely to be at once
simple and complex. In one sense, the enemy is necessary,
and, like Voltaire's God, if he did not exist it would be essen­
tial to create him. The true military man is pleased if he has
a resourceful and courageous enemy opposing him. "The next
best thing to a good friend is a good enemy" is no doubt a
saying of military origin. On the other hand, the professional's
scorn for an easily beaten or unskillful foe passes all bounds.
Though he will show a courageous enemy no mercy in combat
so long as that foe possesses destructive power, the military
man is likely to cherish for him respect and even admiration.
Consequently, when he is captured and disarmed, the impulse

143



THE WARRIORS

of the victor is to be magnanimous and friendly. Sensible rules
require, according to this code, humane treatment of a sur­
rendering enemy, who a few minutes before was intent on
destroying your life and who probably succeeded in blasting
life and limbs from numerous soldiers under your command.
Such reasoning appears to be crystal clear to a professional
mind. The enemy was simply doing his duty, as you are ex­
pected to do yours. The more damage he has wreaked, the
greater your pride in finally subduing him.

Such a conception antedates, of course, the sentiments of
modern nationalism and democracy. It harks back to the days
when professional soldiers were mercenaries, serving for the
love of fighting as well as for money. Because military organi­
zation and thinking appear to be inherently conservative, not
to say atavistic, it lingers on to play an important role in our
century. In WorId War II literature we find this image in its
pure state in the person of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Rom­
mel belonged heart and soul to the professional tradition of the
German Army, where this medieval ideal of knighthood
(Ritterlichkeit) persisted in little-impaired form until the ad­
vent of Hitler. Noted for his correct treatment of prisoners,
Rommel was frequently outraged by the failure of the Allies
to respond in kind. In his professional opponents, he inspired
admiration and awe. This is most evident in the well-known
book Rommel, the Desert Fox, where British author Desmond
Young makes an explicit plea for the retention of the tradi­
tion that all soldiers of whatever nation are comrades in arms.

The complexity of this image lies in the reversal of atti...
tude toward the enemy as an opponent and as a prisoner. As
an armed adversary, he is to be destroyed without mercy.
Morally, he has no human status whatever, and no one can
hate this enemy so cordially and execrate him so roundly as

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im
as

m

in
ev

he

144



you are eI'

,"1eaked,lli�

f prisone�,
f Ine Mll�

r DesmoD�
fIne Iram,

Images oj the Enemy
the professional in pursuit of his aim. The degree of abstrac­
tion in his hatred is immense. He is capable of disregarding
all other considerations except the single one of destroying
everything that stands in the way of successfully accomplish­
ing his mission. He would be the last to grant to himself or
his men that the enemy is a human being on the same level
as themselves. Yet he is ready to grant it when the enemy is
subdued and at his mercy. Generosity and humanity are only
possible where there is no equality, where the relation is one
of conqueror and conquered. In this the predemocratic nature
of the military ideal is apparent.

Often as I have been tempted in reflection to consider this
attitude irrational, even absurd, something holds me back. To
the professional, it appears self-evident and any other suspect.
And since war is actual and real, not merely a concept, this
image of the enemy may be preservative of human integrity,
as some other images are not. If it regards only one aspect of
man, his technical proficiency as a destroyer, it is rational in
part and not built of fantasy. The professional does surmise
in secret the latent humanity of the opponent as opponent,
even if recognition can come only when he is disarmed and
helpless or after the war is past.

Actually, many a professional soldier cherishes human sym­
pathy for his opponent even before the decisive battle, but he
dare not give it rein lest it incapacitate him for his destructive
mission. The understanding of his opponent's motives, a pre­
condition of sympathy, is usually easier for a trained military
man than is the comprehension of the motives of his own
political superiors or the civilian mentality of his people.
Though loyalty is ingrained in him by his professional code,
and cannot be easily dislodged, he may discover in himself, if
he is reflective, more genuine respect for the enemy he is

145



THE WARRIORS

annihilating than for a great number of those he is risking his
life to protect. This commonly recognized fact should surprise
nohody, for the military profession, like few others, is a way
of life that forms its subjects in relative isolation from modern
sentiments and political metamorphoses.

When we ask why this image of the enemy grows increas­
ingly unpopular in our day, honest answers are hardly flatter­
ing to the antimilitarists. To he sure, the professional's predi­
lection for regarding war as a game is out of contact with
present realities. It violates our moral sense to consider the
slaughter and misery of modern wars as anything less than
the catastrophe they are. Since they are no longer fought with
the weapons of chivalry, and since drafted soldiers are not
warriors in the medieval sense, chivalric hehavior to the foe

appears grotesquely inappropriate. Even if democratic coun­
tries find it necessary to use men as means in the wars they
fight, it seems degrading to regard them as such, and we there­
fore resent the military propensity for looking at men as so
much material potentiality. In short, the lack of regard for the
individual as individual, which is part and parcel of pragmatic
military calculation, irritates our modern mentality deeply.

But there is clearly another and more important source for
our dislike of this professional image of the enemy. Because
our wars are hecoming ever more totalitarian in character, this
professional attitude is suspect. Increasingly, we cannot fight
without an image of the enemy as totally evil, for whom any
mercy or sympathy is incongruous, if not traitorous. Our
wars are tending to become religious crusades once more, and
the crusader's image of the enemy is in sharp opposition to
the militarist's.

Curiously enough, General Eisenhower, a professional mili­
tary man who is very untypical, provides a good example of

this
relat
staff
to c

tradi
"For
thin

�ew
betw
and

Ievil
Beea

worll
aitio
with
cone

ber
enG

quit
Wa

I
of

of

146



risking hi!
d surpri�

ana we ili�r�

01 source 1m

my. Becall!l

aracler,lM
cannol n��1
r whom an)
taro us. O�

f more,
an�

position I�

ronal mlli·
fampleo/

l,,",&u o/IM Enemy
this attitude toward the enemy. In hi! Crusade in Europe he
relates how he refused to follow the urging of some of his
staff to allow the captured German General Jiirgen von Arnim
to call on him, and in this connection explicitly rejects the
tradition that all professional soldiers are comrades in arms.
"For me," he writes, "World War II was far too personal a
thing to entertain such feelings. Daily as it progressed there
grew within me the conviction that as never before in a war
between many nations the forces that stood for human good
and men's rights were this time confronted by a completely
evil conspiracy with which no compromise could be tolerated.
Because only by the utter destruction of the Axis was a decent
world possible, the war became for me a crusade in the tra­
ditional sense of that often misused word." It is easy to agree
with this evaluation of the Axis powers without drawing the
conclusions for personal behavior toward an individual mem­
ber of those nations that General Eisenhower does. Ironically
enough, a few years later he found it necessary to adopt a
quite different attitude toward the German soldier of WorId
War II and many German general officers as well.

If the professional soldier reduces the enemy to the status
of an object until he is subdued, the crusader denies his hu­
manity by making him into a devil before and for a time after
his subjugation. The one might well be regarded as a pre­
democratic image, the other as a postdemocratic one. It is
hard to say which image is more abstract, though certainly the
crusader's is destined to be more unrelenting in battle. The
military man finds it almost a condition of his vocation that
he regard men in terms of force, that is, as objects, and dis­
regard all those subjective factors that distinguish every
man from every other. The personality of each man becomes
of interest to him, not for itself alone, but for its military

147



THE WARRIORS

effectiveness. Hence, the professional is caught in a world
of means and instruments, himself one among others. He
makes war a means for furthering political ends, and his pre­
occupation, like his occupation, is seldom with things for
their own sake. This is the abiding curse of the military pro­
fession. The total human being has no chance to break through
to consciousness because there is no official interest in the
whole human being. So the professional image of the enemy
is a consequence of the pattern of life imposed on those who
serve as instruments and not ends. The abstraction of the

image is more or less inevitable.

itfJ
stren

magi
come

foe h
n

State
war

waf]

offic�

ing!
nava

NaEqually ancient, and apparently as persistent, is the image
of the enemy as a creature who is not human at all. Especially
common to simple, uneducated soldiery when fighting a foe of
another color or race, it is by no means unknown to educated,
unimaginative men. They regard the opponent as subhuman, a
peculiar species of animal with indeterminable qualities and
habits, all evil. War against him does not, however, become
simply a hunt or chase, even though he is hunted down and
exterminated wherever possible. The enemy is considered to
be a peculiarly noxious kind of animal toward whom one
feels instinctive abhorrence. He is often compared to a snake,
since most Western peoples feel a superstitious fear and aver­
sion for snakes and attempt to destroy them on sight.

This image of the enemy is fear-filled as no other is, since
no one attributes calculable ways of behavior to the foe, but,
on the contrary, expects any manner of enormity from him.
Though he be animalic in being without human emotions and
reason, he is thought to be capable of treachery, recklessness,
and blood lust to superhuman extent. Based as it is on ignor­
ance and primitive dread, this image prevents those who hold

saci

WI

so

fa
T

148



a worla
others. H�
nd his pre.
things for
ilitary pr�

reak throu�
terest in ili1
of the eneml
on those w�;
action 01 ilil

,� !ne�a�
a�, �[JeCi�

cll!ing a loem
1I!0 eaucal�,

suhnumaD,i
quall!ies�

{earanaaV1r·

Images of the Enemy
it from any reasonable calculation of the enemy's actual
strength or weakness. If modern soldiers no longer believe in
magical powers after the manner of uncivilized peoples, they
come perilously close to attributing mysterious potencies to a
foe like this.

The obvious, though already painful, example for the United
States of this attitude toward the enemy was in our recent
war with Japan. Anyone acquainted with the literature of this
war realizes how prevalent such an image was in the minds of
officers and enlisted men alike. Herman Wouk, in a surpris­
ingly detached comment in The Caine Mutiny, tells of the
naval battle of Kwajalein and describes the indifference of the
Navy men to the suffering of the enemy as follows:

This cold-bloodedness, worthy of a horseman of Genghis Khan,
was quite strange in a pleasant little fellow like Ensign Keith. Mili­
tarily, of course, it was an asset beyond price. Like most of the
naval executioners at Kwajalein, he seemed to regard the enemy as
a species of animal pest. From the grim and desperate taciturnity
with which the Japanese died, they seemed on their side to believe
they were contending with an invasion of large armed ants. This
obliviousness on both sides to the fact that the opponents were
human beings may perhaps be cited as the key to the many mas­
sacres of the Pacific war.

When soldiers are driven to battle by this image, they are
freed from the possibility of remorse for their deeds. Their
hunting impulses are released to seek the most dangerous of
all beasts and the one most deserving of death. In this sense,
war does become a desperate kind of game. The enemy is
sought out to be exterminated, not subdued. There is no satis­
faction in capturing him and exacting obedience and respect.
There is also, of course, no safety in it, since he is held to be
incapable of grasping civilized rules of warfare. Therefore the

149



THE WARRIORS

enemy when disarmed and helpless tends to become the object
of target practice for the opposing soldiers.

An intelligent veteran of the war in the Pacific told a class of
mine a few years ago how his unit had unexpectedly "flushed"
a Japanese soldier from his hiding place well behind the com­
bat area. The unit, made up of relatively green troops, was
resting and joking, expecting to be sent forward to combat
areas. The appearance of this single enemy soldier did not
frighten them, because they knew that this particular island
had been effectively cleared of Japanese troops. But they seized
their rifles and began using him as a live target while he
dashed frantically around the clearing in search of safety. The
soldiers found his movements uproariously funny and were
prevented by their laughter from making an early end of the
unfortunate man. Finally , however, they succeeded in killing
him, and the incident cheered the whole platoon, giving them
something to talk and joke about for days afterward. In relat­
ing this story to the class, the veteran emphasized the similar­
ity of tIle enemy soldier to an animal. None of the American
soldiers apparently even considered that he may have had
human feelings of fear and the wish to be spared. What
puzzled the veteran in retrospect was why his comrades and
he found the incident so humorous. Now, a few years later, it
appeared to him grisly and cruel enough; at the time, he had
had no conscience about it whatever.

This and similar stories by soldiers of World War II in the
Pacific make clearer than analysis can the effect of this image
on the person holding it. On first reflection, the enemy con­
ceived as beasts might be thought to be morally the most
satisfactory of any image, since it avoids feelings of guilt.
Granted the fact of war, the pursuit of killing without com­
punction could be considered the most healthy and rational

150

pOS!
com

wod
effeo

post
ever.

the d

co

ness

meat

brut
his f

of un

parti
a�o
Ii

wlni
al�a
lorei

TheJ
�Kin
ana

twe�
othJ
Ro
ima

I

tol
tro(

Eit'
tirr

eXl



the object

d a classo!
y"fiushenli
nd the com,
troops, W�

to comnm
dier din ��
lcular ijl�
\It\be1se�
rget w�� �
of .afetr, Thl
! and w�re

l�' end ol�
ed lnK�
�\'in� In�m

Md, In r�lll,
the �im��,

pared, i!1
omrades an�

mrslaler,il
time, he nl�

f this iml��
enemr �OD'

ilie mOil

of guilt,
out com·

� rationsl

Images oj the Enemy

possible. War will be a dirty job, but with this attitude the
compulsion exercised on soldiers to carry out the unpleasant
work of extermination will be minimal and bad psychological
effects will be reduced both during the operation and in the
postwar world. This standpoint has an illusory character, how­
ever. The lack of compunction in such taking of life deprives
the destroyer of any emotional purgation. Nothing offsets the
corrupting influences of fear and hatred with which the busi­
ness of slaughter is carried out. Consequently, soldiers per­
meated with this image of their opponent are subject to rapid
brutalization. The veteran referred to above was dismayed by
his former attitude because he could not now grasp the degree
of unrecognized cruelty that had enabled him then not only to
participate in the torture of a defenseless human being but
also to find the spectacle amusing.

I suspect that at some level of consciousness many of these
soldiers recognize their image to be false and that their ration­
alization is a way of making things easier for themselves. The
foreign, strange, and uncanny only partially victimize them.
They allow differences in language and customs and perhaps
skin color to persuade them that internally the mind, emotions,
and soul are also utterly unlike theirs. But nations in the
twentieth century are not so isolated and ignorant of each
other as previously, and, in addition, there is always a "Tokyo
Rose" or similar phenomenon in our wars to contradict the
image of the beast.

If soldiers are completely taken in by this image, it is hard
to grasp what their reactions must be when as occupation
troops they mingle with the pacified and friendly "enemy."
Either they keep detached the wartime image and the peace­
time reality, which is what often happens apparently, or they
experience in moments when memories intrude hidden doubts

151



THE WARRIORS

and regrets at previous cruelty. The enemy could not have
changed, they must reason, so quickly from a beast to a likable
human being. Thus, the conclusion is nearly forced upon them
that they have been previously blinded by fear and hatred and
the propaganda of their own government. Rarely does the
veteran need to take the blame on himself to any great extent,
since the psychical cost is too great. But his bewilderment at
the experience of warfare is surely all the greater.

As important as these moral effects and closely related to
them are what might be called the anesthetic effects of this
image of the enemy. The ugliness of war against an enemy
conceived to be subhuman can hardly be exaggerated. There
is an unredeemed quality to battle experience under these
conditions which blunts all senses and perceptions. Traditional
appeals of war are corroded by the demands of a war of
extermination, where conventional rules no longer apply. For
all its inhumanity, war is a profoundly human institution, and
to be satisfying in any sense, it must retain peculiarly human
aspects. Yet this image of the enemy as beast lessens even
the satisfaction in destruction, for there is not proper regard
for the worth of the objects destroyed. In the recent war against
Japan, not only was the fear of death increased because few
prisoners were taken and torture of the helpless was common,
hut also the compensations, the joys of comradeship, keenness
of perception, and sensual delights were lessened.

Though Pacific veterans can speak with greater authority
than I, it is probable that the war against Japan was particu­
larly revolting not because the terrain on which it was fought
was treacherous and unsuited for conventional warfare. It was

ugly because the image of the enemy, apparently on both sides,
was so far removed from reality. No aesthetic reconciliation
with one's fate as a warrior was likely because no moral

152

purl
day!
beaL
mOIL

hidel
fashi

enen

devi
Ine
num
sess

ad
mor

IS 01
ilios
ene

mo�

evil

de�
wn
rev

uno

of
Co

inl



not have
o a likable
upon them
hatred an�
y does ilie

;! an enelll
era!ea, There

unaer ilie&
" Traai!ionru
of a war �!
r applr, fm
!i!u!ion, an�
iarlr bumaJ
lessens eve�

roper re�81�
twara�aiml
oecause few
as common,

ip, Keennesl

r au!nori�
'as particll'
was fou�n!
are, II wa!

oth SlOes,
ncilia!lon

ro morru

Images 0/ the Enemy

purgation was possible. Thousands of veterans can testify to
days that were grim and relentless and terrible, utterly without
beauty and almost without human quality of any sort. At
moments the novel The Naked and the Dead catches this
hideous ugliness of World War II in the East in unforgettable
fashion.

There is another image of the enemy closely related to this
one, yet even more abstract and deadly in its psychological
effects. In this the enemy is conceived to be not merely a
loathsome animal, below the human level, but also above it in
being a devil or at least demon-possessed and, as such, an
enemy of God. Here his humanity is not questioned, for a
devil ranges the scale of possibilities from the subhuman to
the superhuman. Yet the enemy as devil never achieves the
human level because of his will to evil or because he is pos­
sessed. The modern soldier who is totalitarian in his thinking,
a devoted follower of communism or fascism, feels perhaps
more intensely than did the Moslem of medieval times that he
is on the side of the divine. His mission is extermination of
those who oppose the truth, and it is a holy mission. The
enemy in trying to destroy the only revealed truth, the only
moral order, the chosen nation, embodies the very essence of
evil, which is the devil, or at best he is possessed of some
demonic power which renders him incapable of perceiving
what is plain as day to the faithful. The enemy, in short, is in
revolt against God, interpreted as modern political religions
understand God, namely, their highest value.

To be sure, there is considerable difference in the effect
of this image upon the soldier if "the Fascist beasts" or "the
Communist dogs" or "the Capitalist hyenas" are regarded as
inherently incapable of conversion because their nature is to

153



THE WARRIORS

be devilish or if they are regarded as merely possessed. In the
former case, there is nothing to do but annihilate them. Killing
them becomes a kind of sacrament; after enough of it, the
killers come to feel like high priests. Where the enemy is
thought to be possessed only, it is permitted to make him
prisoner, so that he can be confronted with the truth, before
which even devils sometimes yield. Though this latter inter­
pretation moderates one's hatred of the enemy to some extent,
it does not change greatly its fanatical, abstract character. In
combat the foe possessed of the devil is as wholly treacherous
as the foe who is a devil. Both are unworthy to continue in
existence when they make war against soldiers who are fight­
ing for truth and right.

Let us look at this totalitarian image of the antagonist in
war more closely, for it is fateful in the wars of our day and,
alas, does not belong only to states and governments that are
dictatorships. The image is abstract to a degree hardly equaled
in other images because it refuses to see any quality of the foe
except his ideology. It has no interest whatsoever in the con­
crete differences that may be found in his ranks, nor does it
care to seek out causes for demon possession or to understand
why creatures who are capable of being men have chosen to be
devils. Indeed, the most characteristic aspect of this image
is its utter disregard for the individuality of the foe. If this
refusal to individualize the enemy is characteristic of all hostile
attitudes, only in this totalitarian one is it made into a prin­
ciple. The fanaticism of the totalitarian soldier lies in his ter­
rible pure ..mindedness, in which none of the complicated
mixtures of motives that characterize ordinary human life and
action are allowed to intrude. His image of the ene :"ly is a
logical consequence of his own dogmatic certainty about being
in the right. He is insulated against other truth in a way that

stup
bas 1

to tH
life,
Only
�asl

Vl
ceiv
tern

driv

app'
aec�
the
to H

ete

co

sinl
of
mil
ili
sol
WI

154



of a� no�lu�
inlo a �rin·

in nis If!'

omplica!f�
n life an�

fe ;JY
is!

fut bein�
way that

Images 0/ the Enemy

stupidity or ignorance could never insulate because his reason
has been made captive and all experience is made to conform
to the revelation that pervades his emotional and intellectual
life. Experience is confirmatory and no longer exploratory.
Only that part of it is digested which accords with the soldier's
grasp of reality.

When the enemy devils do not behave in the fashion con­
ceived to be their true nature, the totalitarian soldier is not

tempted to revise his dogmas. On the contrary, he is simply
driven to discover motives for their behavior other than the

apparent ones. Like all devils, the enemy is deceiving and
deceitful. He can feign mercy or fairness in order to catch
the foolish and innocent off guard. Since his actions are never
to be taken at face value, trust cannot be accorded him. Only
eternal suspicion and vigilance are pathways to safety.

All this is heightened when the totalitarian fighter, as
commonly happens, conceives that the enemy is not respon­
sible for his devilish nature. For the rational mind, the absence
of freedom in the forming of the individual predisposes to
mildness and tolerance in his punishment. But something like
the reverse is true for the totalitarian fanatic. If the enemy
soldiers are driven forward by a power outside themselves to
war against God's truth, there is no need to feel sorry for
them or to spare them. Since they are determined by this evil
principle and are not free agents, they cannot be happy or
content in their present state. In theological terms, devils are
all creatures of God and cannot complain when He sends his
angels to eradicate them in His own good time. Is He not
permitted to do what He likes with His own?

The abstractness involved in this image is a double one, as
I have tried to point out. The enemy is not regarded as an
individual, but a representative of a principle of evil, and he

155



THE WARRIORS

is only an embodiment of this principle. His image is general­
ized and terribly simplified, resulting in enmity in battle that
is probably unsurpassed. One cannot hate subhuman creatures,
however vile, so cordially as one hates the violator of a re­
ligious image. An extreme in human separation is here reached
which shakes the foundation of the personality. When two
totalitarian powers make war on each other, the anger and
hatred that arise can be appeased only by the death of one or
the other. More than this, such killing is profoundly satisfying.
Anger and hatred are "fulfilled" in destruction insofar as such
emotions know satiety. The more lives the soldier succeeds in
accounting for, the prouder he is likely to feel. To his people
he is a genuine hero and to himself as well. For him, war is in
no sense a game or a dirty mess. It is a mission, a holy cause,
his chance to prove himself and gain a supreme purpose in
living. His hatred of the enemy makes this soldier feel su­
premely real, and in combat his hatred finds its only ap­
propriate appeasement.

A skeptic may doubt whether many men are really capable
of clinging to such an image of the enemy. Are we not here
dealing with an insignificant number of soldiers in any war?
I do not think so. Western history has seen many armies in
which this image of the foe was widespread, from the days of
the Old Testament, where, indeed, the opponent was nearly
always regarded as an enemy of Jehovah, to the contemporary
Communists. Many believe that the Age of Enlightenment put
an end to religious wars in the West, but they have reappeared
in political form with a vengeance in the twentieth century.
When voluntary German SS troopers engaged fanatic Com­
munists in Russia in WorId War II, a climax in enmity and
hatred was reached in which all traces of chivalry vanished
and all moderation was utterly abandoned. Even to read about

156

so�
stan

tim

ing,
past
ultin
both
ally,

It

ing
req

visi
for
wlt�
�sl
war

pIa!
1

ina
Ine
�ta
to

as



general.
attle thaI
creature�,
r of a r�
re reachea
When tw�
anger an�

h of one �r
y satisfvinaJ 0'
ofar as su��

ucceeasm
o h� peo�l�

a�r cap�l�
we not nere
in anr war1

r armies ill

Ine Qar� �j
was nearlr

ntemporary
enmentput
eappearea

Images of the Enemy
some of those battles with an attempt at imaginative under­
standing is sufficient to shake anyone to the depths. In peace­
time surroundings, such murderous hatred is hardly convinc­
ing, and fact melts into fable in our endeavor to make the
past believable in the present. Yet even in these battles, the
ultimate was not reached because the majority of soldiers on
both sides were unconvinced of their official faiths; emotion­
ally, they were far from fanatic Nazis and Communists.

It is probably true that most men are incapable of support­
ing over a long period the devil image of the enemy. It
requires an imperviousness to common sense and daily experi­
ence, which many are fortunately unable to gain. The dark
vision of Armageddon, which has been an ultimate possibility
for many centuries and which is essentially a religious war
with the devil image of the foe, may hopefully remain a
vision merely. With present technological advances, such a
war could only result in the virtual extinction of life on our
planet and possibly the destruction of the planet itself.

There is, however, no cause for satisfaction in the fact, if,
indeed, it is a fact, that most men are incapable of holding
the devil theory of the enemy for an extended time. The United
States and Russia have come dangerously close in recent years
to that extreme of estrangement where each regards the other
as the enemy of the divine. In the United States, a generation
is growing up without personal contact with anyone of Com­
munist faith. How abstract their image of the Communist is,
only those of us can guess who broach the subject in our
classrooms. It would come as a profound surprise to these
young Americans if they could see an educated Communist
discussing his faith in a conventional classroom or lecture hall.
What he said would be less important than a view of him. In
Russia, the image of the American capitalist exploiter is even

157



THE WARRIORS

more distorted and unreal. If a world war were really to come
at this stage, it would be fatally easy to propagate religious
fury among masses of men who are already half persuaded. At
the moment this is written there is hope that the two systems
will come to tolerate more concrete knowledge of each other
and thus abate the intolerable danger of a religious war.

The worst effect of absorbing this image is probably not
the contraction of personality and outlook which its unreality
entails, bad as that is. Those who hold this image of the enemy
attest the fact that it is not wholly abstract and unreal. Men
are capable of being possessed by an evil spirit, or a devil, if
one likes to use a metaphor, and, though it is not their whole
nature, an impartial judgment must concede that this posses­
sion requires fierce resistance if it is to be overcome. The
worst effect is that it usually instills in the soldier a conception
of himself as avenging angel. The self-satisfaction of such a
soldier, his impenetrable conceit, makes him essentially in­
capable of growth. He is caught in a vise of sterile self-admira­
tion. His ego expands in direct proportion as his bigotry in­
creases. Insulated against experience and free reflection, he
is more or less an automaton without ever suspecting it.
Neither his hatred of the enemy nor his satisfaction with him­

self is organic and natural; on the contrary, both are mechan­
ical and pathological. Only a profound shock can convert him
from the idea of himself that his image of the enemy has done
so much to implant.

The image of the enemy which appeals most to reasonable
men after a war is past can be cultivated while war is in

progress only by the minority of combat soldiers who are at
the same time reflective and relatively independent in their
judgment. I refer to the image of the opposing enemy as an

158

es

fal
aDI

of
im:

en

Jar
tn
or

tH

a�

C!

ei



to come

religious
aded, At

unrealitr
theenemr

eal. Men
a nevil, il

heir wnol�
his POSSel'
orne, Tn�

conception
of suen �

ntia�r in·
li·aalDir�·

'ar is in

o are at

'n their

r as an

Images of the Enemy

essentially decent man who is either temporarily misguided by
false doctrines or forced to make war against his better will
and desire. The foe is a human being like yourself, the victim
of forces above him over which he has no control. Since this

image is a concrete one, the soldier who possesses this image
does not think in terms of the enemy, but recognizes similar
differences of opinion and temperament in the opposing
forces as in his own. In fact, he is most likely to have gained
it through observation of his own comrades. He reasons that
people are much alike all over the world, and only an accident
of history has made the soldier across the front into a foe
rather than an ally. More important than this is his intuitive
certainty that closer acquaintance with enemy soldiers would
reveal that they have reasons of their own for fighting which
must seem to them compelling. The more he is aware of his­
torical causes and the guilt of both sides for hostilities, the
greater is his capacity to feel justification for his foe.

Even when such a soldier is deeply convinced that his
enemies are motivated by false notions of the mission of their
land or ideology and must he defeated at all costs, he feels
that these notions are explainable in terms of their history
or by the duplicity and evil genius of their leadership. After
the shock of defeat, they will require re-education to come
once more into peaceful ways. He reasons that many of those
across the front are quite clear about the injustice of their
cause. But they are caught in a painful dilemma, and must
either fight or be disgraced and possibly executed. Or they
fight for love of their fatherland, from ignorance of the true
causes of the war, or simply because they do not know what
else to do, like so many in the soldier's own army. The vast

majority of them are thought to be victims of evil leadership.
This is the image of the enemy that many governments en-

159



THE WARRIORS

courage at the beginning of wars in our day. Government
agencies proclaim that they have no quarrel with the populace as
such, only with their political leaders. To be sure, this is some­
times a propaganda device to bring disunion to enemy coun­
tries, but it has also been an image held in good faith by large
numbers of people. After all, it is easier for a people who have
had a reasonably happy history to believe that they are not
hated by the rank and file of another nation than it is to be­
lieve the opposite. Many soldiers enter the battle zone with the
secret belief that their opponent does not really desire to end
their lives. Perhaps these soldiers have been in the enemy coun­
try under happy auspices and know for themselves that the
foe is human and likable. Possibly they have learned to cher­
ish some of his customs, music, and literature. A German
making war upon a Frenchman or an American upon an
Italian, to cite only two examples, finds it difficult at first to
hold any other image than this, for he is likely to have rela­
tives or at least acquaintances in the camp of the enemy.

However, there is a deep contradiction in this attitude which
makes its retention for the combat soldier extremely difficult.
How is the misguided enemy to be reformed by the use of
bullets? If he is a victim of force majeure, how can he be
liberated from his leaders without destroying him? It is nearly
impossible for a combat soldier to prepare himself psycho­
logically for bloody combat with a will to victory while holding
such an image of his foe. How can he become enthusiastic
about Operation Killer or look forward with eagerness to
carrying out a superior's command to close with the enemy?
The war itself is more likely to seem the greatest folly and
criminality ever perpetrated. If he kills, he is troubled by
conscience, and if he does not do his share in the communal
life imposed by combat, he is also tormented. The soldier who

160

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Images of the Enemy
is on the borders of his own country, fighting against an
invading enemy, can more easily find the will to oppose the
intruders, but in modern wars it more often happens that he
is asked to enter combat on faraway shores and in unfamiliar
lands.

Professional officers readily perceive the military disad­
vantages of this view of the foe and oppose it, as a rule, with
passion. If victory is to be achieved, the enemy must be hated
by the soldiery to the utmost limit. Hence his character is
painted as black as possible and his reputed mercilessness ex­
aggerated on all sides. Professional officers consider part of the
psychological training of their troops to be training in hatred,
and this becomes more systematized and subtler as the war
goes on. The identification between leaders and followers in
the enemy ranks soon becomes a dominant theme of the propa­
ganda on both sides. In World War II, for example, all Ger­
mans became Nazis, all Japanese fanatic Shintoists, for the
Germans all Russians became Communists and all Americans,
for their enemies, were bloated imperialists or dupes of satanic
J ews. War has its own logic, as I have already emphasized,
and such a transformation doubtless requires little conscious
directing. The humane image of the enemy is increasingly
combated in our century by field commanders of both demo­
cratic and totalitarian lands. Perhaps the professionals them­
selves are more torn than we know by the double image of the
enemy as devil on the one hand and a comrade in arms on the
other. But their long training enables them to suppress on
order all sympathy for their opponents and destroy them with­
out mercy at the proper time.

There is an instructive passage in Tolstoi's War and Peace
where Kutusov, the Russian general who defeated Napoleon,
speaks to a segment of his troops who are relentlessly pursuing

161



THE WARRIORS

and destroying the broken Grande Armee. Mounted on his
horse, the old general, whom Tolstoi depicts as a combination
of professional soldier and kindly grandfather, is made to
speak as follows:
"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it can't be
helped. Bear up; it won't be for long now! we'll see our visitors
off and then we'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your services. It is
hard for you but still you are at home while they-you see what
they have come to," said he, pointing to the prisoners. "Worse off
than our poorest beggars. While they were strong, we did not
spare ourselves, but now we may even pity them. They are human
beings, too. Isn't it so, lads?"

Then he looks perplexed for a few moments, in Tolstoi's
account, suddenly changes his whole demeanor, and finishes
his speech:
"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody
bastards!" he cried suddenly, lifting his head. And flourishing
his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time during the whole
campaign.

The rational soldier will perceive the illogic of this attitude
and reject it for himself. The enemy cannot be at the same
time human beings in need of sympathy and "bloody bas­
tards." To the man who sees the enemy as misguided indi­
viduals, the Kutusovs are the victims of a military code that is
deeply inimical to him. Yet he is certain to be even more
alienated from the other views of the enemy, as animals and as
devils. He can understand the soldier who possesses a deep
personal hatred and a longing for revenge because of wrongs
suffered, even if he shudders sometimes at the inhumanity of
his rages. But the other views are incomprehensible to him,
based as they are on magic and primitive superstition. He
would like to believe that these images could be expelled

162

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Images of the Enemy

through more knowledge and genuine education, but he is
unsure because the power of blind passion has been demon­
strated daily in his war experiences.

The combat soldier who refuses to yield to abstract hatred
in forming an image of the enemy is accordingly isolated and
lonely on a modern battlefield. Often he will wonder why he
did not yield to earlier impulses and declare himself a pacifist
and conscientious objector to the senseless cruelties of warfare.
Since an absolutist position is overwhelmingly popular in war­
time, he is quite certain that, if a choice must be made, he
belongs to the absolute pacifists as opposed to the apostles of
total destruction. Yet he feels himself opposed to both ex­
tremes. Normally, he believes enough in the rightness of his
country's cause and the wrongness of the opponent to fight and
give his life if need be for that conviction. That many innocent
victims must suffer and die as a consequence of the struggle
for a limited justice is for him an ancient lesson of history
with which he can cope in some fashion. It is not the suffering
and dying that sickens him so much as it is the brutalization
of the emotions and the corruption of the heart which pro­
longed fighting brings. I could not escape it:

I know that I hate my work in this war, that the war itself is
slowly attempting to destroy all that I hold jealously as my own.
When I read tonight in the Voelkischer Beobachter, which was
captured on a prisoner, the words of a German soldier's diary,
that he had lost his "Ich," his personality in the long years of this
war, I shuddered. He spoke for me.... Formerly I tried to be
mild and kind, now I interrogate the miserable civilians and take
pride in sternness and indifJerency to their pleas. Perhaps the
worst that can be said is that I am becoming a soldier.

We broke the glass on the door and unbolted the door from
the inside. . . . [The Nazi who had committed suicide was]

163



THE WARRIORS

sprawled in a corner dead, a bullet through his temple. It was a
pitiless spectacle, but not particularly moving lor me. I took his
revolver and leIt him.... I felt that his end was just and the solu­
tion 01 a problem. Somehow I have grown quite hard in the past
months.... God in Heaven, help me to keep my humanity....

The pacifist who refuses to bear arms may not deny the
moral superiority of one cause over the other, but he will not
grant that violence can determine or establish that superiority.
War as a means is to him worse than the evil it seeks to
eliminate. If the rational soldier trusted his emotions more,
he would concur wholeheartedly with this doctrine. Surely,
war is the worst possible way to resolve man's problems. Better
than any pacifist, he knows after a few months in combat the
essential evils of war. But the voice of reason will contradict
his sympathies, assuring him that the pacifist renunciation of
the outer self and retreat to some stronghold of inner freedom
and resistance is no answer to this world's woes. He can be

assured, his reason whispers, that his place is in the midst of
it all. If he is forced to do more evil than the pacifist could
endure, he is also in a position to accomplish more good. His
guilt is heavy, but there is a chance to atone for it here; at
home or in some camp for conscientious objectors, there
would be none.

Such a soldier knows no peace or security of mind in war.
The middle ground that he has chosen is unstable, for the
extremes threaten to overwhelm him. It is not only a conflict
between reason and emotion, for reason has a powerful voice
in some situations in war on the side of pacifism. Increasingly
as the war progresses, his choices seem choices among evils,
and the greater and lesser evils harder and harder to discern.
He longs for the end of the war, when reconciliation with the
foe can begin and when he can help to reconstruct what he

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Images of the Enemy
has had a hand in destroying. Sometimes he longs for death
as the only way out of the inextricable web of events, the re­
sponsibility for which he partly shares. If the moral enormities
of war preoccupy him too exclusively, it is partly because the
majority of his fellows seem oblivious to moral considerations.
His insistence upon a concrete image of the enemy is respon­
sible for the conflicts of conscience in which he is entangled.
Were he able to choose the easier way of his comrades, the
battlefield would lose half its horror. As I wrote:

How tired of this war I have got so quickly. It breaks my heart to
see these Italian homes broken up, miserable people, shivering and
naked, torn from all they have in this world. Where is the end?

How I feel about Allied occupation of Italy is difficult to say.
When I see, as yesterday, an American soldier walking down the
street holding the hands of two Italian children who in turn held
two others by the hand, I feel that all will yet be well. But when
I hear how 5th Army CIC in Mondragone is dominated by a
cigar-smoking agent who constantly yells: "Hit the f-- bum
in the mouth," and "Throw the guinea in the clink," and similar
expressions, I grow doubtful.

The concrete image of the enemy is compatible with the
limited war of an earlier day. A soldier holding it then might
have fought with relative cheerfulness and perhaps regarded
war as a confused but not contradictory pattern of human life.
Since his view of human nature is realistic, he would possess
the virtue of patience with the slow processes of history. What
overwhelms his modem counterpart is the antihuman character
of total war in our generation. The reasonable soldier is unable
to grasp the total unreasonableness of abstract hatred and
fanaticism. Absolute virtue and absolute vice are as unreal
to him as collective innocence or guilt. He has his limits, this
conscientious soldier, both of sympathy and understanding,

165



THE WARRIORS

How many soldiers hold these images of the enemy in a
modern war? This question is unanswerable, of course. The
image in many cases will be, or become, a composite one, with
little of the sharp distinctness I have found necessary to make
in analysis. Yet this last image is compounded much more
rarely with the other three than they are with each other. This
image is a reflective one, and he who has learned to think
concretely will not hate abstractly, at least not for long. This
image alone holds large hope for the future. The question
pregnant with possibility is: Can we not expect under modem
conditions of communication and transmission of knowledge
that realistic attitudes toward potential enemy nations will
increase and fewer individuals will be able to generate beast
and devil images? This is inseparably connected with the
future of war.

I have heard it said in Germany of late that another war
between France and Germany is unthinkable because the two
peoples have come to know each other so intimately that
hostility sufficient for war could no longer be propagated. The
assertion is often broadened to include all the countries of
Western Europe. By virtue of travel and manifold communi­
cations of every sort since the last war, they have come so
close to each other that another conflict of European states
could not happen. The reasoning behind these statements is

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and modern war exceeds these limits. Consequently, he is a
lost soul in total warfare and in global war. There is no place
for him at home or in prison, in pacifist work camp or in the
military machine. Unless nations return to old-fashioned ways
of war and peace, he will be able to breathe freely and move
in his proper atmosphere only when modern nations renounce
war altogether.

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Images of the Enemy
that former abstract images and hatreds have gradually given
way to concrete knowledge and even friendship. Nowadays
adjacent peoples know each other better than did inhabitants
of neighboring cities in the same nation a generation ago. The
argument appears to be a reasonable one. Noone would deny
that the world's peoples are coming closer to each other in the
sense of physical contacts and at least superficial knowledge
of each others' customs, origins, and aspirations. Will it not be
increasingly difficult for governments to create a believable
image of the beast or the devil in respect to other peoples?

Let us hope so. But I am not too confident. Physical near­
ness provides us no assurance of understanding or genuine
closeness of spirit. Often enough, classes within a country have
lived together for hundreds of years and remained exceedingly
ignorant of each other. Examples abound in the world today. If
civil wars are not as numerous as formerly, is it not more because
governments have learned to make better use of secret police,
who detect trouble signs early, than because hostility has
lessened? We are likely to judge relations among groups too
externally and to put great confidence in the appearance of
things. I met. many who hated their own people with a fierce
hatred:

Last evening four of us went to the house of a French lady
who spoke English. She and her mother live in a pleasant villa in
St. Raphael.... To hear her speak of the work of the French
underground and how they were killing French collaborators
made one's flesh creep. There is no question that the French hate
with the greatest bitterness. She spoke with delight of a coming
event, supposed to take place today, when forty French girls who
had been too friendly with the Germans were to have their heads
shaved in public by the Maquis and other Resistance groups. She
seemed, and was, a charming lady, but how brutally she spoke of
France's enemies!

167



THE WARRIORS

These people live on hatred. What they can do to their victims
is almost unbelievable. They carry around with them horror pic­
tures of German atrocities committed on Resistance groups. They
feed themselves on hatred. It is all strange and horrible. Death is
in the very air here and things far worse than death.... I think,
too, that there is no religion here, no piety. It is perhaps a great
error to think, as we all have, that suffering brings humility and
piety.

the
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aspe

Yet we know upon reflection that only the slow, unpredict­
able development of conscientiousness and concern for others
brings us close to them, not mere acquaintance and surface
intercourse, not mere knowledge. When we ask whether our
generation knows more friendship and concern for other
peoples than did our forefathers, our answers become hesitant.
The pathway to a more peaceful world lies hidden in very
complex motives of the human heart. The capacity for com­
passion and for tolerance of the immense differences among
individuals and peoples is only one of the conditions that are
important. Another is the strength and insight to recognize
our individual freedom and consequent responsibility for our
deeds in war and peace.

Few things are more revealing about man as warrior than
his tendency to slough off responsibility for the suffering and
tragedy he inflicts. And if we could read aright the portent of
this absence of guilt feelings in most modern soldiers, it would
not be difficult to predict what is yet in store for us in the
twentieth century. Why can men do together without con­
science things that would torment them unendurably if done
singly?

Seated in our living rooms, remote from action and passion,
most of us like to believe that we shall never yield again to
abstract hatreds. We take pride in feeling our independence of

168



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Images of the Enemy
the mass media, and easily persuade ourselves that we are our
own men. Many of us are, indeed, impervious to the worst
aspects of mass hysteria; we cannot readily be won by the
insistent voices of radio, newspaper, and television screen,
though hitherto we have always been swept along with the
others. Historically, our record for stemming the tide has not
been good, and to me, at least, this is a sobering thought. Do
we not have a penchant for overestimating our strength in
times of crisis, we moderates?

Perhaps even worse, few of us ever know how far fear
and violence can transform us into creatures at bay, ready
with tooth and claw. If the war taught me anything at all, it
convinced me that people are not what they seem or even think
themselves to be. Nothing is more tempting than to yield
oneself, when fear comes, to the dominance of necessity and to
act irresponsibly at the behest of another. Freedom and re­
sponsibility we speak of easily, nearly always without recog­
nition of the iron courage required to make them effective in
our lives.

169



sa



SIX

THE ACHE

OF GUILT

The man I interrogated and took to Army proved to be a spy.•••
1 went to Army two days later, after he had been "broken" by
endless interrogation and considerable beating.... It recalled the
memory of Scarpelini in Italy, whom I also apprehended and
turned over.... One thing contents me, that these were not in­
nocent soldiers. They knew what they were facing. The German
had been an idealistic Nazi for fifteen years.... Am I responsible
for their deaths? Both might well have escaped had it not been
for me.... Certainly they had blood on their hands, and desired
to have more. Is their blood on mine? But I am more fortunate
than many soldiers who must kill more innocent men. Perhaps
the hardest thing of all is that I feel no guilt. (War journal,
November 4, 1944)

Nothing revolts the sensitive spirit so much as the bloody
and unjust deeds of warfare that leave no trace of guilt in the

171



THE WARRIORS

doers and are from every human perspective unavenged. If
we were not accustomed to evasions of responsibility in our­
selves, such behavior would force us into cynicism of the most
nihilistic sort or, at the best, to complete bewilderment about
human nature. Yet a voice within each of us echoes the senti­

ments of Hamlet: "Use every man after his desert, and who
should 'scape whipping?"

The fighting man is disinclined to repent his deeds of vio­
lence. Men who in private life are scrupulous about conven­
tional justice and right are able to destroy the lives and happi­
ness of others in war without compunction. At least to other
eyes they seem to have no regrets. It is understandable, of
course, why soldiers in combat would not suffer pangs of con­
science when they battle for their lives against others who are
trying to kill them. And if the enemy is regarded as a beast
or a devil, guilt feelings are not likely to arise if he is slain by
your hand. But modern wars are notorious for the destruction
of nonparticipants and the razing of properties in lands that
are accidentally in the path of combat armies and air forces.
In World War II the number of civilians who lost their lives
exceeded the number of soldiers killed in combat. At all events,
the possibilities of the individual involving himself in guilt are
immeasurably wider than specific deeds that he might commit
against the armed foe. In the thousand chances of warfare,
nearly every combat soldier has failed to support his comrades
at a critical moment; through sins of omission or commission,
he has been responsible for the death of those he did not
intend to kill. Through folly or fear, nearly every officer has
exposed his own men to needless destruction at one time or
another. Add to this the unnumbered acts of injustice so
omnipresent in war, which may not result in death but in­
evitably bring pain and grief, and the impartial observer may

172

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The Ache of Guilt

wonder how the participants in such deeds could ever smile
again and be free of care.

The sober fact appears to be that the great majority of
veterans, not to speak of those who helped to put the weapons
and ammunitions in their hands, are able to free themselves of
responsibility with ease after the event, and frequently while
they are performing it. Many a pilot or artilleryman who has
destroyed untold numbers of terrified noncombatants has never
felt any need for repentance or regret. Many a general who has
won his laurels at a terrible cost in human life and suffering
among friend and foe can endure the review of his career with

great inner satisfaction. So are we made, we human creatures!
Frequently, we are shocked to discover how little our former
enemies regret their deeds and repent their errors. Americans
in Germany after World War II, for instance, feel aggrieved
that the German populace does not feel more responsibility for
having visited Hitler upon the world. The Germans, for their
part, resent the fact that few Americans appear to regret the

bombing of German cities into rubble and the burning and
crushing of helpless women and children. It appears to be
symptomatic of a certain modern mentality to marvel at the
absence of guilt consciousness in others while accepting its
own innocence as a matter of course.

No doubt there are compelling historical reasons why
soldiers in earlier times have felt comparatively little regret
for their deeds and why modern soldiers in particular are able
to evade responsibility so easily. It is wise to assume, I believe,
that the soldiers who fight twentieth-century wars are morally
little better or worse than their grandfathers or great-grand­
fathers in previous wars. Nevertheless, there are some nove]
factors in our time that, taken together with the traditional
ways of escape, make it easier for the majority of soldiers to

173



THE WARRIORS

carry the guilt for the destruction of the innocent in contempo­
rary conflicts. These novel factors lie both in our contemporary
interpretation of guilt and in the nature of recent combat.

Our age seems peculiarly confused about the meaning of
guilt, as well as its value. With the rise of modern psychology
and the predominance of naturalistic philosophers, guilt has
come to be understood exclusively in a moral sense. Its older
religious and metaphysical dimensions have been increasingly
forgotten. Moreover, these naturalistic psychologists have
tended to view guilt feelings as a hindrance to the free devel­
opment of personality and the achievement of a life-affirming
outlook. They like to trace guilt to the darker, subconscious
levels of the soul and emphasize its backward-looking char­
acter as opposed to the future-directed impulses of the natural
man. Hence guilt, when reduced to moral terms, has more and
more been branded as immoral. To some, it is associated with
a species of illness, which must be cured by psychiatric treat­
ment. Though these modern doctors of the soul realize that the
uninhibited man is not an attainable ideal, they still strive
for the goal of acceptance of oneself and one's nature for what
they are. The individual is released as far as possible from
regret for past deeds and from the hard duty to improve his
character.

Even if these doctrines get modified in actual practice and
are seldom read in their deeper meanings, the basic ideas
filter into the broadest strata of our population and help to
form the dominant mood of our day. Even the simplest soldier
suspects that it is unpopular today to be burdened with guilt.
Everyone from his pastor to his doctor is likely, if he brings
up feelings that oppress him, to urge him to "forget it." Pre­
cisely this is what he often longs to hear, and, so, forgetting
becomes such a disquieting phenomenon of the modern mind.

In

evide
and I

"higH
soldie
himse

likely
guilt I
the c

origin
on the

174



increasln�1
ogists n�l!
e free �ey!f

liie·affinnm!
suhcon�i�w

loobn� Ch�o
of the nalurru
has more anI
·ociate� 111�
hiatric tr��lo
auze that I�!
y slill sinn
ure forwn!1
"illle from

asic id��
nd help t�
est soldi�r
ith guilt.

re brin�!
it." Pr�

rrgettin�
� mind,

The Ache of Guilt

In war itself, the most potent quieters of conscience are
evidently the presence of others who are doing the same things
and the consciousness of acting under the orders of people
"higher up" who will answer for one's deeds. So long as the
soldier thinks of himself as one among many and identifies
himself with his unit, army, and nation, his conscience is un­
likely to waken and feel the need to respond. All awareness of
guilt presupposes the capacity to respond as an individual to
the call of conscience. I am using the term "respond" in its
original meaning of answer to a question or a demand made
on the self. We respond to conscience only when we can sepa­
rate ourselves from others and become conscious, often pain­
fully so, of our differentness. Though the call of conscience
may seem to be an impersonal voice outside of one, the re­
sponse is peculiarly within the individual self. Why did you
do this? Why did you not do that? If we hear at all and if we
attempt to answer, the response must begin with the first
person singular pronoun. I must begin with myself as I was:

My conscience seems to become little by little sooted.... II
I can soon get out of this war and back on the soil where the clean
earth will wash away these stains! I have also other things on my
conscience.... [A man named H., accused of being the local
Gestapo agent in one small town] was an old man of seventy. His
wife and he looked frightened and old and miserable.... I was
quite harsh to him and remember threatening him with an in­
vestigation when I put him under house arrest.... Day before
yesterday word came that he and his wife had committed suicide
by taking poison. Fain and I went back and found them dead in
their beds, he lying on his back and reminding me, gruesomely
enough, of my father, she twisted over on her side with her face
concealed. At the bedside was a card on which he had scrawled:
"Wir mussten elend zu Grunde gehen. Der Herr Gott verzeihe uns.
Wir haben niemandem leid getan."... [We must perish miserably.

175



THE WARRIORS

God forgive us. We have done no one any harm.] The incident
affected me strongly and still does. I was directly or indirectly
the cause of their death.... I hope it will not rest too hard on
my conscience, and yet if it does not I shall be disturbed also.

Since conscience normally awakens in guilt in the sense
that a troubled conscience is usually our first indication of its
existence, it is clear that an important function of guiltiness
is to make us aware of our selves. Whatever his response, the

person who hears the call of conscience is aware of freedom in

the form of a choice. He could have performed differently
than he did; an act of his might have been different. The
whole realm of the potential in human action is opened to him
and with it the fateful recognition that he is in charge of his
own course. Conscience is thus in the first instance a form of
self-consciousness. It is that form that gives to us an un­
mistakable sense of free individuality and separates for us the
domains of the actual and the ideal. Therewith the life of
reflection begins, and the inner history of the individual no
longer corresponds to his outer fate.

But the individual need not waken, and, indeed, everything
in warfare conspires against such response to the call of free­
dom. Enemy and ally enclose his little life, and there is little
privacy or escape from their presence. Loyalty to his unit is
instilled by conscious and unconscious means; the enemy is
seeking to destroy that unity and must be prevented from
doing so at all costs. He is one with the others in a fraternity
of exposure and danger. His consciousness of the others may
be vague but is an omnipresent reality; it has much similarity
to dream awareness. Directly, he is aware of his pals, the half­
dozen or more men he knows relatively well, with a few dozen
more who are on the periphery of his consciousness. Beyond
them there are thousands who encircle him, whose presence he

176

sens(

front
in th(
endUl

pressf

withi�jIDuna
fate h

�e1led
the un

In j

consci
nlm in

�ucce,
or mal

ana Il'me," .
rifle 0

�o�si�
compl
ansol

mu�t,

many

simpl
perso
Kill,
unit
acco

nee

proj
bee



� incident
indirect!r
o hard on
ed a�o,

the serue
ation of iij
f guiltin��
sponse, lli!
freedomm

differenll)
ifierent. Th!
penealon�
char�e ol�
ce a lorm �l

,eVe�ID!
ca� oliw

to his UDilu

the enemr �

\'entea irom
a fraterni�
otherSID!1

h similan�
, then�'

few doze�
, Beyon�

esence ne

The Ache of Guilt

senses. There is a vast assemblage of unknown "friends" con­
fronting an equally vast mass of unknown "enemies," and he is
in the midst of all of them. Their presence makes his situation

endurable, for they help to conquer the loneliness that op­
presses him in the face of death, actual or possible. Something
within him responds powerfully to the appeal of the com­
munal. The orders that he receives from those in charge of his
fate hold him where he is in the midst of disorder. He is com­

pelled and controlled as though by invisible threads through
the unseen presence of the others, friend and foe.

In an exposed position on the battlefield during action, his
consciousness of being a part of an organism is likely to plunge
him into contradictory feelings of power and impotence which
succeed one another rapidly. "If I don't hit that guy out there
or man this machine gun to the last, my buddies will be killed
and I'll be the cause of their death. Everything depends on
me." A few minutes later he is likely to ask himself what one
rifle or machine gun on one tiny portion of the field can
possibly matter to the final outcome. His place in the whole
complex is lost to sight, and he is in danger of feeling how
absolute is his dependence. All the time, he acts as he feels he
must, swept by moods of exultation, despair, loyalty, hate, and
many others. Much of the time he is out of himself, acting
simply as a representative of the others, as part of a super­
personal entity, on orders from elsewhere. He kills or fails to
kill, fights courageously or runs away in the service of this
unit and unity. Afterward, he hears no voice calling him to
account for his actions, or, if he does hear a voice, feels no
need to respond.

In less sophisticated natures, this presence of the others is
projected also into the weapons and instruments of war. They
become personalized, and the soldier becomes attached to them

177



THE WARRIORS

as an extension of himself. They afford him a vast comfort in
difficult positions as a protection and a shield, a second skin.
On the one hand, these weapons help to prevent the soldier
from feeling responsible for the lives he takes. "I did not kill,
my gun or grenade did it" is the subconscious suggestion. On
the other hand, guns help to fill the intermediate spaces be­
tween him and the others. They help to cement the wall of
comradeship that encloses him and ties him to his own side
while at the same time preventing the enemy from becoming
too real. Unless he is caught up in murderous ecstasy, destroy­
ing is easier when done at a little remove. With every foot of
distance there is a corresponding decrease in reality. Imagina­
tion Hags and fails altogether when distances become too
great. So it is that much of the mindless cruelty of recent wars
has been perpetrated by warriors at a distance, who could not
guess what havoc their powerful weapons were occasioning.

Where weapons and comrades are insufficient to dampen
self-awareness and personal responsibility, the soldier can
often draw aid and comfort from the earth itself. His relation
to nature is likely to be quite different from that elemental
sense of belonging, which can also arouse in the perceptive per­
son the most poetic and blissful feelings. The combat soldier
hugs earth and trees as protection, as "cover" in the expressive
military phrase. He does not now think of nature as the
source of his life, but as his possible means of preserving it
against those who would isolate and destroy him. Nature is
part of his situation; it, too, is a presence in the special way
that his weapons and his buddies are. If earth becomes dear,
for example, the walls of his foxhole, trees, breastworks,
clouds, and SUD, it is not as part of nature that these things are
dear. They are dear as instruments that shield him from the
enemy. Everything is there for him, as it were, and yet he is

178

then
men

abo
Ins
hims
accOl

reBel
orin�

In
bin
ent

an1r
ana
�m

acte

ilie�
ana
wnel
ana
ln�

tar
Ire�

�rel

�
:1
thi
en

W�

01



mfort in
nd skin,
e solilier
not kill,

stion, On
paces ne.
e wall 01
own sioe

becomin�
y, aesrr01'
eryfootol
,Ima�!.

eeent Win

eoulOMI

ionin�,
o aam��
ldier �

is relati��
elemenw

ptive�er'
atsoJaier

xpressive

re a,s t�e
rvJn� II

es dear,

rtworh,
rgs

are

om ilie

r he is

The Ache oj Guilt

there only for the others. He makes everything into an instru­
ment, himself included. He is a trigger finger, a tank driver,
a bombardier, a scout, and he can take delight in being an
instrument. So everything conspires to prevent his coming to
himself, and, as often as not, the soldier is a semiconscious
accomplice in it as well. Why should he undergo the pain of
reflection, the dangerous isolation acute self-awareness can
bring with it?

In highly mechanized armies, many a soldier gains a cer­
tain fulfillment in serving the machine with which he is
entrusted. The automatism of military life has been immeasur­
ably increased by the perfection and intricacy of instruments
and weapons, and it is certain that the human beings who
serve them are actually influenced by their automatic char­
acter. Combat soldiers must adjust themselves to the laws of
these mechanisms, and their habits become of necessity more
and more mechanized. Individuality is inevitably suppressed
when a group of soldiers have to co-ordinate their movements
and all their daily activities in the proper functioning of an
instrument of war. But the significant thing is that so many
take pleasure in it. There is, I suppose, a perverse kind of
freedom here, the freedom from reacting in novel and un­
predictable ways. Whatever the source, love for the machine­
and the more complicated and exacting, often the greater the
love-is an important element in modern combat. The hard­
ened German tanker cited earlier who broke down and cried
at the loss of his tank is far from an isolated instance. Those
thinkers who believe that a new type of man is bound to

emerge as a product of our technological development might
well study in detail over the last century the varying relation
of men to their weapons of war.

In totalitarian countries, this willingness to become a func-

179



THE WARRIORS

tionary is much further developed because it is consciously
pursued by the dictator at the summit. Self-awareness is fought
as an enemy of communal enthusiasms. In 1944 and 1945 I
had to listen to Fascist and Nazi police and party function­
aries exclaim with nauseating regularity when they were cap­
tured: "My conscience is clear!" It made no difference how
heinous the deeds were in which they had taken part, always
the refrain was the same: "I have done nothing wrong. My
conscience is clear." Despite early suspicions that these pro­
testations masked real guilt feelings, I became convinced in
the end that most of these men knew no genuine regrets for
what they had done. As functionaries, guilt was for them, in
any case, an empty word. If their consciences had ever awak­

ened, the lack of response had long since silenced the call.
The inhumanity that so appalled me about them was more
often than not a kind of absence of feeling rather than sadistic
perversion. Machines cannot respond; they can only perform,
being at the service of something or someone else.

It was peculiarly abhorrent to me that these people expected
the same treatment at my hands that they had meted out to
their victims. One particularly repulsive officer of the Security
Service, nicknamed "Genickschuss" from his reputation for
shooting Polish underground fighters and hapless Jews in the
back of the neck, hastily wrote a farewell note to his wife and
children after I had interrogated him and consigned him to a
jail cell. The jailer brought me his letter within the hour,
asking me what to do with it. When I had read it, I was
puzzled by the references to his imminent death.

"Does he mean to commit suicide?" I asked the German

jailer.
He looked incredulous and answered simply, "Not a chance.

He expects you to treat him as he treated his prisoners."

180

fro)
"Ull

�

an

WD
ill

W)
fe



iously
fought
1945 I

ction.
ere cap.
ce how
always

ng, My
ese pro.

,

ced in
e�for

smore

sad�lic

erionn,

peclea

louI,toecun1r
ion for

linilie
�e ana
m to a

I hour,
I was

�
�ce,

The Ache of Guilt

In a kind of baffled rage at the thought of his fearful crimes,
I cried out, "And if I did what was right, that is just exactly
what I should do."

I shall never forget the jailer's quiet reply. "Sir, it is
necessary," he said.

For many soldiers, however, a much more conscious escape
from responding to conscience is the fact that they are acting
"under orders." Their superiors who issue the orders must
take the blame and bear the consequences. When one asked, as
I did, which superiors would bear responsibility, the answer
was usually vague. Pressed far enough, it usually turned out
to be the commander in chief who was to carryall the weight
of guilt for deeds that, if committed in peacetime, would have
brought heavy penalties.

I was amazed how many American civilian soldiers ap­
peared to put great weight on taking the oath of the soldier.
Frequently, I heard the remark: "When I raised my right hand
and took that oath, I freed myself of the consequences for
what I do. I'll do what they tell me and nobody can blame me."
Of course, in a legal sense it is and has been customary in
military organizations to hold the highest ranking officer re­
sponsible for deeds of his men committed under orders. But
Anglo-Saxon lands have long since learned to distinguish be­
tween legal and moral responsibility, at least in peacetime. It
was clear, however, that most of the soldiers who cited the oath
felt that the moral responsibility was being shifted as well.
The satisfaction in thus sloughing off responsibility was often
plainly visible. Becoming a soldier was like escaping from
one's own shadow. To commit deeds of violence without the

usual consequences that society visits upon the violent seemed
at first a bit unnatural but for many not unpleasant. All too
quickly it could become a habit.

181



THE WARRIORS

In a more legalistic nation like Germany, where the distinc­
tion between law and right or between state justice and
private morality has never been sharply drawn, the abrogation
of personal responsibility for one's deeds is even less com­
plicated. It is hard for civilian America to comprehend the
mental and moral conversion involved for a professional Ger­
man soldier to oppose in full consciousness a military com­
mand. To most of us, it sounded like an easy excuse when
Hitler's officers protested at Nuremberg and elsewhere that
they were "carrying out orders" when they committed atroc­
ities. To most of them, however, this was a sufficient explana­
tion and excuse for their deeds. I suspect that the majority of
Germans remain unconvinced that any soldier should be

legally punished for "doing his duty," regardless of its in­
humane character. I hardly need to add that many Americans,
both professional military men and others, are also unper­
suaded.

To be sure, since the Nuremberg trials, Western nations
have officially denied the soldier's right to obey orders that
involve him in crimes. He must distinguish between illegiti­
mate orders and those that are in line with his duty as a
soldier. Presumably, the distinction is always clear according
to official pronouncements, but in reality under the conditions
of total war few things are more difficult to distinguish. Our
age is caught in a painful contradiction for which there is no
resolution other than the renunciation of wars or at least of
the way we have been waging them in this generation. On the
other hand, we have come to believe in total victory over the
foe, with the use of every means thinkable to effect this goal.
Since the opponent's residual strength rests in his industrial
potential and civilian labor force, we have found it necessary to
disregard the age-old distinction between combatant and non-

182

we

In
of
�m
co�

i�t

cr



!Stine.
� and

Ger.
com·

when
that

The Ache oj Guilt

combatant. In these wars moral considerations become, as a con­
sequence, increasingly irrelevant while the war is in progress.
The longer they last the more nearly do the opposing sides
approach that boundary where everything is allowed.

However, once the question of victory is decided, we are
shocked beyond measure at such moral license and require
stern punishment of the vanquished for violations of the
rules of war. When reason gains some ascendancy over pas­
sion at the end of a war, nearly everyone can see that to turn
over individual rights to desperate men, intent on victory at
whatever cost, is to invite moral chaos. It seems that the more
we transgress in recent wars upon everything essential to
individual dignity, the more convinced we become afterward
of the necessity of maintaining individual rights inviolate.
Small wonder, however, that the majority of soldiers, dimly
conscious of this contradiction, refuse to involve themselves in
issues so confused and troubling.

Not at all certain whether they will later be considered by
their own people as heroes or as scoundrels, great numbers
find it simpler to ignore the moral problems by thinking of
them as little as possible. Better to let the conscience sleep,
to do as the others are doing and as one is told to do, and the
future will bring what it will. Who knows whether there will
be a future anyway? Most soldiers in wartime feel caught in
the present so completely that they surrender their wills to
their superiors and exist in the comforting anonymity of the
crowd.

Though the above may be a correct, external description of
the response or lack of response on the part of most soldiers
to individual guilt in waging war, it nevertheless misses all
the subtle ways in which guilt is incurred in conflict and made

183



THE WARRIORS

present to the conscience of the minority. There are degrees and
kinds of guilt, and not merely a formal declaration of simple
guilt or innocence by the inner tribunal. Those soldiers who
do respond to the call of conscience find themselves involved
in the most bafHing situations, in which any action they could
take is inappropriate. They learn soon that nearly any of the
individual's relations to the world about him can involve him
in guilt of some kind, particularly in warfare. It is as per­
vasive in life and reflection as is human freedom itself. Awak­
ened to his personal responsibility in one aspect of combat
action, the soldier is not necessarily awakened to finer nuances
of guilt. Yet it sometimes happens that the awakening is
thorough and absolute in character, demanding of the subject
an entirely different set of relations to friend and enemy.

It is a crucial moment in a soldier's life when he is ordered to

perform a deed that he finds completely at variance with his
own notions of right and good. Probably for the first time, he
discovers that an act someone else thinks to be necessary is for
him criminal. His whole being rouses itself in protest, and he
may well be forced to choose in this moment of awareness of
his freedom an act involving his own life or death. He feels
himself caught in a situation that he is powerless to change
yet cannot himself be part of. The past cannot be undone and
the present is inescapable. His only choice is to alter himself,
since all external features are unchangeable.

What this means in the midst of battle can only inade­
quately be imagined by those who have not experienced it
themselves. It means to set oneself against others and with one
stroke lose their comforting presence. It means to cut oneself
free of doing what one's superiors approve, free of being an
integral part of the military organism with the expansion of
the ego that such belonging brings. Suddenly the soldier feels

184

men

such

Iro
coni

ore
sno�

learlne
mas

evio

rePl
seU
as �



and

imple
who

olved

fng �
Ubject

rea to
lli his

fe, he
is for
d he

one

eseU

� an
n of

ree�

The Ache of Guilt

himself abandoned and cast off from all security. Conscience
has isolated him, and its voice is a warning. If you do this,
you will not be at peace with me in the future. You can do it,
but you ought not. You must act as a man and not as an
instrument of another's will.

I shall always remember the face of a German soldier when
he described such a drastic awakening as this. At the time we
picked him up for investigation in the Vosges in 1944, he was
fighting with the French Maquis against his own people. To
my question concerning his motives for deserting to the French
Resistance, he responded by describing his earlier involve­
ment in German reprisal raids against the French. On one
such raid, his unit was ordered to burn a village and to allow
none of the villagers to escape. (Possibly the village was
Oradour and the soldier was one of the participants in that
grisly atrocity; at that time we knew little of what was happen­
ing elsewhere and I did not ask him for names.) As he told
how women and children were shot as they fled screaming
from the flames of their burning homes, the soldier's face was
contorted in painful fashion and he was nearly unable to
breathe. It was quite clear that this extreme experience had
shocked him into full awareness of his own guilt, a guilt he
feared he would never atone. At the moment of that awakening
he did not have the courage or resolution to hinder the

massacre, but his desertion to the Resistance soon after was
evidence of a radically new course. Terrible as was his self­
reproach at what now could not De undone, he had won him­
self through this experience and would never again be available
as a functionary.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch tell of a German soldier who
was a member of an execution squad ordered to shoot innocent
hostages. Suddenly he stepped out of rank and refused to

185



THE WARRIORS

participate in the execution. On the spot he was charged with
treason by the officer in charge and was placed with the
hostages, where he was promptly executed by his comrades.
In such an act the soldier has abandoned once and for all the

security of the group and exposed himself to the ultimate
demands of freedom. He responded in the crucial moment to
the voice of conscience and was no longer driven by external
commands. In this case we can only guess what must have
been the influence of his deed on slayers and slain. At all
events, it was surely not slight, and his example on those who
hear of the episode cannot fail to be inspiriting. Were it not
for the revelation of nobility in mankind, which again and
again appears in time of war, we could scarcely endure reading
the literature of combat.

These are, of course, extreme examples and not to be taken
as typical. Normally, the awakening of guilt is much more
gradual, and the achievement of clarity about duty to one's
country and duty to oneself a matter of anguished doubt,
sometimes lasting for months or years. But the primary realiza­
tion is the same in all cases: there is a line that a man dare
not cross, deeds he dare not commit, regardless of orders and
the hopelessness of the situation, for such deeds would destroy
something in him that he values more than life itself. He may
decide that his commander, his army, or his people may justly
demand his life hut may not command him to do what is in
violation of his deepest self. However clear he may be about
this momentous conclusion in moments of quiet and repose,
the soldier is not thereby steeled against anxiety and fear of
death. In the melee of conflict he may at times feel as do his
unawakened comrades, that life is all he has, after all. Per­
sonal resolution is constantly attacked by the strain and dis­
order of combat life. His body, he discovers, is not always

186

subj
causi
right
gutlt.
powel
resol
pulses

Ne

��ons'
�mng
justic
livest
means

MInsel

mUitaloccasl
who 0
must \

conscl'�ufficinimse
rronte

Gu:
Mac

are!1
oetwi
dark



it nol

ana

aain�

laken
more

one'!

IOuDl,
laliza·
dare

� ana
�Iror
mar

iustlr
is in

IDout

rose,
aror

� nis
Per·
dis·

rars

The Ache oj Guilt

subject to his will. Impulses and emotions sweep him away,
causing him to act again and again contrary to his sense of
right. Against his innermost desire, he involves himself in
guilt. Conscience within him is a voice long before it is a
power; he desires to respond long before he has the required
resolution. Though the voice is insistent, more clamorous im­
pulses are able to dominate him in moments of violent action.

Nevertheless, his conscience has established an image of the
ideal, a man who will acquit himself in whatever situation with
independence and dignity. His inner history henceforth in
combat will be the struggle to live up to this ideal. It may be
that the soldier is contending against fear that he will involun­
tarily desert his comrades in a critical moment and be re­
sponsible for their death. It may be that he has qualms against
killing enemy soldiers. Or he may be utterly persuaded of the
justice of his country's cause and of the necessity of destroying
lives to realize that cause, yet strongly opposed to this or that
means his side is employing. He may be struggling to acquit
himself well in a tangle of personal relationships common to
military organizations in times of tension and peril. The
occasions and situations are manifold in which the soldier
who can no longer pass responsibility for his acts to others
must struggle to gain full possession of himself. The voice of
conscience is forever convicting him of inadequacy and in­
sufficiency, urging him to better efforts. The ideal of acquitting
himself like a man comes to appear utopian when he is con­
fronted with certain situations.

Guilt is likely to come upon him in many other ways than
as a consequence of natural fear of pain or death. Modern wars
are full of border situations where a soldier is forced to choose
between evils and where every choice is like leaping into the
dark because its consequences are unforeseeable. Rarely will

187



THE WARRIORS

he find a situation as clearly wrong as the shooting of hostages
or the strafing of fleeing civilians. On the contrary, he will
often have to choose between helping a wounded comrade to
safety or remaining at his post to protect others whom he does
not know. Sometimes he will have to choose the welfare of his
unit at the expense of other units or the civilian populace.
Hunger and cold and animal needs are everywhere in war in
the midst of superfluity of food and warmth and delicacies.
When he gives up his food or warm room in favor of some
pitiful urchin or haggard mother, such charity can hardly
comfort him because it is so transient. In the face of the need,
his efforts will seem inconsequential to the point of futility.
Even though the soldier may become a relatively selfless man
in the service of the civil populace and his weaker comrades,
he will seldom he at ease with himself. In some degree he will
feel guilty of omitting to do what he ought, or doing what he
ought not. This is inevitable, of course, for he is an individual
who thinks of himself and others as ends in themselves in a
situation where human beings are means for superpersonal
goals. Men are materials to be expended for national interests,
real or imagined. All the awakened soldier can hope to do in
such a society is to meliorate the lot of the less fortunate, to
act in an inhumane environment as humanely as possible.
Opportunities to be humane are ordinarily plentiful enough
in combat zones, but his freedom is constricted on all sides. It
is like moving on a rack.

Such a soldier is likely to suffer most of all from the com­
mands of military superiors when they are close to the border
zone of the forbidden, that is, when they transgress the line
that he cannot cross if he is to live with his conscience. The
satisfaction that the unawakened conscience takes in making
itself an instrument of higher wills is for the awakened con-

188

scie
out

freq
orde
fami
survi
aisol

It
ence

whe�
haH

spidlaiffio
en�el
evenl

scien
ins

lives

cons(

fatefl
ne w

H
War
inte

trrar
una�
olo
of

job



Istages
le will
:ade to
le does
� of rus
Ipulace.
war in
lcacies.
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The Ache 01 Guilt

science a leading source of its misery. To be required to carry
out orders in which he does not believe, given by men who are
frequently far removed from the realities with which the
orders deal and often motivated by abstract hatred-this is the
familiar lot of the combat soldier. The man of conscience can
survive morally only by following the letter of such orders and
disobeying their intention.

It is a great boon of front-line positions that this disobedi­
ence is frequently possible, since supervision is not very exact
where danger of death is present. Many a conscientious soldier
has discovered he could reinterpret military orders in his own
spirit before obeying them. The fortunate ones have escaped
difficulties with their commanders; the unfortunate have often
ended in disciplinary barracks or even a death cell. At all
events, the tension in such a soldier between the voice of con­
science and the demands made upon him as a means and
instrument of higher authority will rarely relax. The alterna­
tives to this tension are for him either the surrender of his
conscience to superiors or open defiance of their orders with
fateful consequences to his life and freedom. Both alternatives
he will seek to avoid as long as possible.

Here is a personal example. For several months in World
War II, I was attached to an infantry division whose divisional
intelligence officer, a colonel, was an insensitive military
tyrant. He was pleased to have our detachment of six men
under his control and at the same time was deeply resentful
of our superior educational backgrounds and independence
of mind. He liked to meddle with our somewhat specialized
job of interrogating the civilian populace in the search for
spies and saboteurs the retreating Germans might have left
behind or sent over the front. Increasingly, I found myself
resenting and resisting his often harsh orders for civilian re-

189



THE WARRIORS

strictions and prohibitions. As linguists, we were his only
means of communication with the civilian populace, who were
regarded by him as an infernal nuisance to be tolerated only
because they could not be conveniently expelled from combat
areas.

When our division entered the first towns of Alsace, we
encountered numerous young Alsatians in civilian clothes who
had deserted from the German armies when on furlough and
hidden out at the risk of their lives while awaiting our advance.
The Alsatians had helped to hide these youths from the ruth­
less clutches of the Gestapo. Some of them had previously
served with the French against the Germans, but when Alsace
and Lorraine were incorporated in Germany with the defeat
of France in 1940, they had been conscripted into Hitler's
armies, only to desert at the first opportunity. There was, of
course, much rejoicing now that they could at last leave their
hiding places and greet old friends and neighbors publicly
once more. Many of them came to us and offered their help
in intelligence work. Hard pressed as we were for help (only
two in our detachment knew German well enough to be effec­
tive) , we found much for them to do.

But the colonel had noticed the appearance of young men
on the streets here in contrast to France, where male youth
had been conspicuously absent. He called our detachment
commander by telephone and demanded an explanation. With
our briefing, the captain gave him the facts of the situation.
The colonel's response was immediate: "Do they have dis­
charge papers from the German Army?" It was explained to
him that deserters were never supplied with discharge papers,
that being contrary to the usage of the German Army. His
conclusion was breath-taking. In that case, these men were
prisoners of war, and we were to round them up and ship

190

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The Ache oj Guilt

them in prisoner trucks through regular channels to the huge
camps in France. The colonel insisted OIl' quick action. Our
captain, who was sympathetic with us but afraid of the colonel,
begged us to arrest the deserters the next day as ordered.

I was fortunate in having as a German-speaking colleague
a strong-minded and intelligent young man of Boston Irish
descent. He was profane, not overly scrupulous on moral
issues, but fair-minded. He and I determined not to obey the
order. To obey it would be the one way to alienate com­
pletely this friendly and much-mistreated Alsatian people. For
parents to see their sons, who had risked their lives escaping
from the German Army, loaded on the same trucks with hated
German soldiers and transported to prison camps would be to
embitter relations with their "liberators" from the beginning.
Moreover, the orders were manifestly unjust to these young
men, who felt themselves to be allies and wanted in every way
to aid our cause. The two of us hoped to avoid the issue by
simply ignoring the order and continuing our other work, of
which we had more than enough. But the colonel called again
and was this time insulting and insistent. Still we ignored him,
though our captain begged us to act. The third day, the col­
onel was threatening us with court-martial and worse for dis­
obeying a direct order.

What were we to do? The two of us talked it over and
decided to continue to refuse. It was not so much courage on

my part as physical weariness and moral disgust at the in­
justices of warfare. In the most obscene language, my asso­
ciate declared that the Army could court-martial him a hundred
times and he would not obey such a stupid, senseless command.
His mood was one of weary, sullen resistance to the vast

stupidity of higher headquarters. He had been much longer in
the war than I, having served with distinction in Africa and

191



THE WARRIORS

Sicily as well as in Italy and France. If his concern with the
injustice of the order was not as great as mine, his resoluteness
was greater, and fortified me. I had visions of the forbidding
disciplinary barracks we had glimpsed in North Africa, of a
dishonorable discharge and the disgrace it would bring on my
aged father, who would not be able to understand why I had
to disobey. Still, I knew that if I did not draw the line here
I would be unable to draw it anywhere. If I did not refuse to
become a party to the arrest of innocent, wronged men, I
could not refuse to do anything that this or any other colonel
ordered. I felt myself to be at the end of a tether. This was to
be a showdown, and I had little doubt as to the winner. The
loneliness and isolation of spirit that swept over me served
to teach me how much I had hitherto been sustained by the
silent approval of "the others." Even my partner in disobedi­
ence could not lift from me the heavy spiritual burden, for
he was bitter and cynical about the whole affair.

Fortunately, things turned out in very different fashion
from the expected. The colonel decided to call up army head­
quarters and report our insubordination before taking further
action. He chanced to reach an intelligent officer who knew
us both slightly, and this officer wanted to know why we
persisted in disobeying orders. This the colonel had never
stopped to determine, but when he did communicate the cause,
Army Intelligence found our reasons good and within a day
or two sent through an order that all Alsatian deserters were
to be left with their families and in no case to be transported
anywhere with German prisoners of war.

We had unexpectedly won the day and drew comfort after­
ward from the report that where our division had gone through
Alsace the population was distinctly more pro-American than
in other parts of Alsace-Lorraine. In areas where the deserters

192

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The Ache 0/ Guilt

had been arrested, they had been forced to undergo manifold
hardships and humiliations in prisoner-of-war camps, ironically
enough because they were not in uniform, and were treated
by our troops as cowardly and unworthy the respect accorded
regular prisoners.

This was only an incident of war, not objectively important
except as it influenced sectors of a population for or against
the Allied cause. But subjectively it was for me a kind of
turning point. As a result of it, I gained no great confidence
in my ability to withstand extreme pressures from official
authority, yet I had determined that a line could be drawn
between personal rights and military demands. Though I
knew that sheer good fortune had prevented the normal con­
sequences of disobedience from falling upon me, I felt, never­
theless, immensely strengthened for a possible second refusal.
More important, the incident cleared my mind on the vexed
question of the relation of the individual to his state. Hard as
they were to assert, I now felt convinced that the individual
had his absolute rights even in the desperate struggle for
survival that is modern war. And survival without integrity of
conscience is worse than perishing outright, or so it seemed
to me. Nothing had furthered my self-knowledge so much since
my encounter with the old man of the mountain in Italy the
year before.

I have no doubt that many others have found themselves
in much more crucial difficulties in warfare than this example
illustrates. Yet, curiously enough, most contemporary war
novels deal with nearly every agony of combat except this
one. Where matters of conscience are taken up, as in the im­

mensely popular Caine Mutiny, there is frequently an ambiv­
alence in the attitude of the author toward the rights of con­
science against military organization. In Wouk's novel, for

193



THE WARRIORS

instance, the reader is left in doubt about the moral justifica­
tion for "the mutiny," despite the fact that the captain of the
Caine is portrayed in the worst possible light. He is cowardly,
completely neurotic, a pathological liar, and incapable of
giving orders that will save his ship from destruction. Yet, the
author reminds us, he is a commander in the United States

Navy, of long service, and as such an early fighter against the
evil enemies of his country. Perhaps he should be obeyed
despite his incapacity, since the principles of obedience and
discipline count for more in a war of survival than individual
conscience and private morality. This is typical of the modern
confusion about the spheres of individual right and state
authority in the era of total war.

However, the man of awakened conscience actually caught
in this dilemma, as contrasted with the author writing a book
about it, will usually be clear that duty to himself prohibits
him from acting contrary to his voice, regardless of his fears
and the personal consequences. He may obey such orders, but
at the cost of his moral integrity. The safe observer has no
right to blame him, for the sternest self-discipline is demanded.
Few men in any age have had the moral stamina of a Socrates,
who many centuries ago decided for himself that it was a right
and duty to disobey his state and people when he felt they
were wrong, but not his right to flee from their punishment for
that disobedience. If few young men can be expected to attain
the resolution of a mature Socrates, the reflective soldier is
nearly certain to share the Socratic trust in the reliability of
his conscience when it is in conflict with the group will.

This is particularly true of the conscience that is supported
by faith in its divine origin. A secure religious faith has
enabled many a soldier to act in defiance of unjust commands
or to overcome the temptation to save himself at the cost of

194

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The Ache oj Guil'

others. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the testimony of those
condemned officers and soldiers who struck against Hitler in
1944 is eloquent and instructive evidence of this fact. Judging
from their last letters to friends and family members, not all
of them had religious support for their consciences. Those who
had no religious faith or hope for life after death acted as
courageously as the others and faced the end with confidence
in the justice of their cause. Nevertheless, their sadness stands
in sharp contrast with the tranquillity and even exaltation of
those who were believers. Both groups seemed immensely
relieved to be freed from the pressure of conformity to a sys­
tem and a party they had learned to despise. The difference
between them was that those of religious faith took leave of
their lives as though the physical end was the beginning of
something mysterious yet marvelous.

There is a kind of guilt that transcends the personal re­
sponsibility of the sensitive conscience and burdens that
soldier particularly who retains faith in the cause and the
country for which he is fighting. It is the guilt the individual
shares as a member of a military unit, a national fighting
force, a people at war . We may call it social or political or
collective guilt; it is not essentially different for the civilian
than for the soldier, and it is inescapable. No matter how self­
contained and isolated in spirit the man of conscience may feel,
he cannot avoid the realization that he is a participant in a
system and an enterprise whose very essence is violence and
whose spirit is to win at whatever cost. For the soldier, it is his
squad or company or division that performs deeds abhorrent
to him. No matter how strongly he abjures personal respon­
sibility for this or that deed, he cannot escape social respon­
sibility. So long as he wears the same uniform as his fellows,

195



THE WARRIORS

he will be regarded by outsiders as one of them. His fellows,
too, treat him as a member of the fraternity of men at arms.
The conscience within him may be more and more appalled
by the heedlessness of group behavior and the mechanical
ruthlessness of an organization whose dedication to violence
gives it an unholy character. I was appalled and yet I could
not escape it. I wrote in my journal one day at the height
of the war:

Yesterday we caught two spies, making our recent total five.
We are getting a reputation as a crack detachment. One had to be
severely beaten before he confessed. It was pretty horrible, and 1
kept away from the room where it was done ... though I could not
escape his cries of pain..•. I lay awake until three o'clock this
morning.... I thought of the Hamlet line as most appropriate,
"Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart."

A soldier with an awakened conscience who is a member of
such a community, coarse, vulgar, heedless, violent, realizes
with overpowering clarity the possibility of being alienated
from his own kind. This uniformed, machine-like monster, the
combat unit, drives him back into himself and repels him
utterly. Toward individuals who make it up, he can gain
many relationships, but the collectivity itself chokes him with­
out mercy.

Toward his nation as a nation he may well come to experi­
ence in his innermost self the same lack of relationship. A
state at war reveals itself to the penetrating eye in its clearest
light and the spectacle is not beautiful. Nietzsche's likeness of
it to a cold snake is, from one perspective, not greatly exag­
gerated. The awakened conscience will recognize a part of this
spirit of the nation in the hate-filled speeches of politician­
patriots, in the antipathy toward dissenting opinions about the
utter virtue of its cause, in the ruthlessness with which the

196

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The Ache of Guilt

individual is sacrificed for real or alleged national advantages.
It will despise the fanaticism with which this state makes
morally dubious and historically relative ends into absolutes,
its perversity in maintaining pride at whatever price in human
misery.

At the same time, justice will force this soldier to admit
that these are his people, driven by fear and hatred, who are
directing this vast mechanism. If he is honest with himself he
will admit that he, too, is a violent man on occasion and
capable of enjoying the fruits of violence. Legally, and more
than legally, he belongs to the community of soldiers and to
the state. At some level of his being he can understand why
they perform as they do and can find it in his heart to feel
sorry for some of the politicians and higher officers. In their
place he wonders if he would do any better than they. He is
bound to reflect that his nation has given him refuge and
sustenance, provided him whatever education and property he
calls his own. He belongs and will always belong to it in some
sense, no matter where he goes or how hard he seeks to alter
his inheritance. The crimes, therefore, that his nation or one
of its units commits cannot be indifferent to him. He shares
the guilt as he shares the satisfaction in the generous deeds
and worthy products of nation or army. Even if he did not
consciously will them and was unable to prevent them, he can­
not wholly escape responsibility for collective deeds.

He belongs and yet he does not belong. "I did not ask to be
born," he is likely to tell himself while struggling with his
responsibility for collective deeds, "and I did not choose my
nation. Had I been given a choice of places to grow up at
various stages in my education I might have chosen other than
the nation in which I was accidentally born. I am, of course, a
citizen of this nation and am willing to expose my life in its

197



THE WARRIORS

defense. But in my inner being I belong only to the com­
munity that I have freely chosen, my friends, my club, my
church, my profession. All other associations of mine are
external and accidental, however little I may have realized it
earlier. This does not free me from the guilt that this nation
is heaping upon itself, so long as I participate in its defense.
I shall always be guilty as long as I belong to a nation at all.
Yet there is no good life apart from some nation or other."

It is clear to him that his political guilt is of a different sort
from the personal, since the latter stems from his freedom in
a direct way, the former only in part. The nation was in being
long before him and will presumably continue in being after
his death. Hence his capacity to change its course is im­
measurably limited by its history as well as by his own powers.
For the politically conscious soldier, this does not mean,
however, that it is negligible. Insofar as his political guilt
is in direct relation to his freedom, he will become conscious
of what he has done or failed to do to promote or hinder the

humanizing-of military or political means and objectives. He
will be certain at all events that he has not done enough. On
this or that occasion he has been silent when he should have

spoken out. In his own smaller or larger circle of influence he
has not made his whole weight felt. Had he brought forth the
civil courage to protest in time, some particular act of in­
justice might have been avoided. Whatever the level of influ­
ence the soldier commands, from the squad or platoon to the
command of armies, in some manner he is able to affect the
course of group action.

When the nation for which he is fighting has enjoyed a free
government and been previously responsive to its citizens'
wishes, he will be conscious of greater responsibility than will
the soldier whose government is authoritarian or totalitarian.

198

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The Ache 0/ Guilt

The greater the possibility of free action in the communal
sphere, the greater the degree of guilt for evil deeds done in the
name of everyone. Still, the degrees of guilt are impossible to
assess for anyone else, and hardly any two people share an
equal burden of communal guilt. The soldier may have been
too young as a civilian to have exerted much influence on
events or he may have been too poorly informed or confused
to know where his political duty lay. As a soldier, he may be
in too isolated or insignificant a location to make effective use
of his freedom. No citizen of a free land can justly accuse his
neighbor, I believe, of political guilt, of not having done as
much as he should to prevent the state of war or the commis-

is 1m. sion of this or that state crime. But each can--and the man
of conscience will-accuse himself in proportion to the free­
dom he had to alter the course of events.

The peculiar agony of the combat soldier's situation is that,
even more than in his struggle with his own ideal self, he is
aware of the puniness of his individual powers to effect a

'ves, He change. War not only narrows the limits of personal freedom,
ugh, On but it likewise constricts the individual's communal liberty,
10 have his capacity to make his power felt in significant ways. The
encene sense of impotence will weigh upon him day after day. Though

ffth
the the man of awakened conscience will hardly believe that the

of in· war is a natural catastrophe, he will not know how any in-
f in�u, dividual can alter its seemingly inexorable course. Personal
to the guilt can be in some measure atoned and the struggle to

improve can be taken up every morning anew. But com­
munal guilt comes upon him in ever increasing measure in

a free any war, and he is likely to feel utterly inadequate either to
tizens' atone for it or prevent its accumulation.

n wi� For instance, when the news of the atomic bombing of
, Hiroshima and Nagasaki came, many an American soldiernan,

199



THE WARRIORS

felt shocked and ashamed. The combat soldier knew better
than did Americans at home what those bombs meant in

suffering and injustice. The man of conscience wherever he
was realized intuitively that the vast majority of the Japanese
in both cities were no more, if no less, guilty of the war than
were his own parents, sisters, or brothers. In his shame, he
may have said to himself, as some of us did: "The next atomic
bomb, dropped in anger, will probably fall on my own country
and we will have deserved it." Such a conviction will hardly
relieve him of the heavy sense of wrong that his nation com­
mitted and the responsibility for which he must now in some
measure share. All the arguments used in justification-the
shortening of the war by many months and the thousands of
American lives presumably saved-cannot alter the fact that
his government was the first to use on undefended cities, with­
out any warning, a monstrous new weapon of annihilation.

Worst of all about such deeds is that millions accepted
and felt relief. Hearing this near-exultation in the enemy's an­
nihilation, one can only conclude that political guilt has an­
other source than the freedom of the individual to affect group
action. It lies in the degree of his identification with the goals
and the means of realizing them that his nation adopts. The
person who inwardly approves an immoral action of his
government or military unit testifies to his own probable deci­
sion had he possessed the freedom and opportunity of the
actors. Freedom is possible, therefore, not only in the power
to do or prevent, but also in inner assent and consent to
action by others. With a relative criterion like this it is, of
course, impossible to be exact in estimating even one's own
guilt. Yet the jubilation in evil deeds allows little room for
doubt that inner consent is often forthcoming. So do thou-

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The Ache 0/ Guilt

sands of people increase their political guilt in wartime beyond
the range of their direct action.

To some extent after World War I and explicitly after World
War II, doctrines of collective guilt have become common.
The German nation, for example, and particularly the German
Army is often said to be guilty for having fought for Hitler
in his aggressive wars of conquest and rapine. However inno­
cent the individual soldier may have been of any personal
misconduct, the fact that he was a member of a criminal
conspiracy to deprive other peoples of their independence by
violent means made him guilty. What justice is there in such
a claim? To what extent is a German soldier in the last war

guilty who kept himself free of personal crimes but was forced
to experience, more or less directly, atrocities committed by
his fellow soldiers and who was not blind to Hitler's mad
ambitions? Is he not in an utterly different position from the
soldier of a nation like ours who fought the war defensively to
repel aggression?

In terms of what I have previously said, the answer can only
be that no outsider has a moral right to make such an accusa­
tion about either the soldiery or the people as a whole. For an
anti-Nazi soldier to have interfered with some act of injustice
carried out by his fellow countrymen would have resulted in
his prompt execution, as enough recorded instances prove.
Apart from the demands of courage and determination that
such an act requires, the question that tormented some soldiers
in this situation was: What political purpose will my sacrifice
serve? Many a conscientious German soldier might have
screwed up his courage to open interference had he seen

clearly in what way his death would have helped prevent
further crimes. Fortunate soldiers found the right moment and
the right deed with which to strike against the system they

201



THE WARRIORS

despised, and their chance to witness made them content to
die. Others fought to the end of the war without such oppor­
tunities or without the necessary courage. Only those who
sacrificed themselves in similar situations have the right to
accuse them, and probably few of them would care to do so,
if they were alive and able. For my own deeds I am responsible
and can be held accountable, even if I act under the orders of
another. For the deeds of my fellow men, specifically my fellow
countrymen, my responsibility cannot be a public or legal one,
for it is too dependent on my estimate of my ability to hinder
criminal acts and of my inner consent to their commission.

Yet if accusations of collective guilt are unjustified, the
sensitive German soldier could hardly escape the consciousness
of his own political guilt. A burning sense of shame at the
deeds of his government and the acts of horror committed by
German soldiers and police was the mark of a conscientious
German at the close of the war. "I am ashamed to be a Ger­
man" was a not infrequent remark when friend was speaking
to friend as the revelations of what the Third Reich had done
became generally known. To be sure, those without conscience
considered that they had atoned sufficiently for their political
"mistakes" by their suffering during and after the war, and
rejected with indignation any imputation of collective guilt.
They wanted to hear nothing of their vicarious part in the
crimes of their fellow citizens.

The reflective man knows in his heart what rarely crosses
his lips, that the sins of his fellows are not so remote from
him as he would like. If he is a soldier, he, too, has yielded at
times to the temptations of power and the license that violence
evokes in all of us. However free he may have kept himself
from external participation in evil deeds and however foreign
cruelty may be to his better nature, he will be aware that there

202

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The Ache 01 Guilt

is in nearly all men the capacity for criminal deeds and the
obscure yearning for license to act without consequences,
hence his recognition of the chains of communal responsibility
and his knowledge that atonement in this sphere is largely
chimerical. No human power could atone for the injustice,
suffering, and degradation of spirit of a single day of warfare.
All of us shared the guilt, as I wrote in my journal on two
occasions.

1 talked yesterday to a young Viennese deserter . . . he had had
nothing to eat but potato soup.... The picture he gave of the
prison was grim enough..•. One man, suspected of being a spy,
was given nothing to eat for six days and was now past hunger. If
he talked he would be shot as a spy, if he didn't he would starve
--a difficult choice. The youth was strong, courteous. . . . He
finally asked me in German, "Do 1 have to go back to Epinal?"
And his whole soul was in the question and in his eyes. 1 said no,
that was all past for him, and his face was suddenly illumined. 1
felt in a moment the whole stark tragedy of this war. What bitter
cruelty all of us exercise ! We are guilty and deserve the extreme
penalty. Nothing that happens to me in future will I ever feel
unjust and unmerited.

This morning was spent in attempting to control the mass of
refugees streaming around here, some 2000 in a town whose popu­
lation hardly exceeds 5000. This fate is pathetic, and more and
more this problem of displaced persons becomes tremendous.
Germany was really a slave state on a gigantic scale. Almost all
of these foreign workers are on the roads, a few hours after their
liberation, going they know not where, but away from the front
and toward home, they hope, though thousands must know that
they have no longer a home. But this afternoon Seitz and I saw
something ten times worse. There was a concentration camp not
far from here, and last Saturday the German guards loaded the
inmates onto freight trains and tried to haul them away. When
they discovered that the trains could not proceed, they left them

203



THE WARRIORS

near a town named Oster burken. We found them there this after.
noon, some 880, half-dead, horribly starved people, among them
300 French Maquis, political prisoners.... To see these living
deaths in their striped suits in rags, dragging their feet, was a
sight that I would have done without. To add to its gruesomeness,
there was a dead German soldier deserter, who had been hanged
and whose body was lying by the road under a tree. Someone
had cut him down but the rope was still around his neck and his

feet were tied. He had been an attractive youngster, and one could
pretty well guess his story. The SS who had hanged him will one
day have to pay, and those who were responsible for the unim­
aginable suffering of these concentration-camp inmates will pay
also.

The realization of political guilt is poignantly expressed in
a poem by Albrecht Haushofer, one of the determined and
long-standing opponents of Hitler, who was imprisoned and
finally executed near the end of the war. His little book of
poems entitled Moabiter Sonette, written in a Berlin prison
while his hands were shackled, testifies to political guilt of a
man who had already atoned more than is required of most of
us. In the sonnet entitled Schuld (Guilt), he begins by noting
how easy it is for him to carry the guilt that his Nazi court
trial wanted to load upon him. To them he was a traitor to his

people in the plot against Hitler. Then he concludes in the
German version, to which I have added a literal translation:

Doch schuldig bin ich arulers als ihr denkt,
ich miisste [riiher meine Pflicht erkennen
ich miisste schdrjer Unheil Unheil nennen­
mein Urteil hab ich viel zu lang gelenkt ...

Ich klage mich in meinem Herzen an:
Ich habe mein Geioisseti lang betrogen
Ich hab mich selbst urul andere belogen-

204

TI

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ontl

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ofn
was

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ern

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ill!

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'!tofa
mosloi

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tit:O:iniliela!ion:

The Ache oj Guilt

ich kannte fruh des Jammers ganze Bahn­
ich hab gewarnt-nicht hart genug und klar!
Und heute weiss ich, was ich schuldig war . • •

Yet I am guilty otherwise than you think.
I should have known my duty earlier
And called evil by its name more sharply­
My judgment I kept flexible too long . . .

In my heart I accuse myself of this:
I deceived my conscience long
I lied to myself and others-

Early I knew the whole course of this misery­
I warned-but not hard enough or clearly!
Today I know of what I am guilty ..•

Thus the conscientious German soldier may well feel greater
political guilt than a conscientious Allied soldier, depending
on the measure of assent he had given to the National Socialist
regime and the freedom of action he possessed. But the quality
of his political guilt will hardly be different, for the warfare
was not carried on by angels against devils, but by soldiers
in a relatively just cause fighting soldiers in a relatively unjust
cause. If the character of Hitler and his paladins gave to the
Allied side a moral justification unusual in warfare, the West­
ern nations have no reason to forget their share of respon­
sibility for Hitler's coming to power or their dubious common
cause with the Russian dictator. The reflective soldier on both
sides of the conflict will see no escape from political guilt as
long as he remains a member of a state. If, in his disillusion­
ment, he is tempted to renounce his nation and pledge his
allegiance to the human race alone, this, too, will prove
illusory, for mankind collectively is doubtless as predisposed
to injustice as nations are.

205



THE WARRIORS

It is precisely this realization that may lead the soldier to a
recognition that personal and political guilt are hardly re­
solvable on their own levels. They involve a guilt that can only
be called metaphysical, because it concerns man's very being
and its relations to the rest of the cosmos. The root of the

guilt problem lies in human nature itself, in our failure as
human beings to live in accordance with our potentialities
and our vision of the good. Because we do fail, our spirits are
isolated and closed to each other. None of us can be to an­
other as we really desire to be, for we strike against some­
thing strange and alien in him. The sympathies of even the
most reflective and sensitive do not extend far enough to
overcome entirely the antipathy toward his fellows that is in
nearly all of us. In some facet of our being we are closed and
indifferent, not open to others or concerned with their fate.
Though most of us are capable of feeling compassion for the
suffering of men, and recognize our common kinship in isola­
tion and loneliness, this recognition is rarely strong enough to
influence our action decisively . We cannot love enough either
our fellow men or our common mother, the nature from which
we originate and to which we return. As human beings, we
are in a perpetual state of disequilibrium with the rest of
creation, neither humble enough to recognize our dependence
nor bold enough to actualize our powers.

If this is capable of oppressing many of us in time of
peace, it is easy to imagine with how much greater force it
strikes a reflective soldier in combat. Everywhere he experi­
ences himself and his comrades as violators of the earth. The
ruthlessness with which organized warriors deal with the order
of nature in order to defend their miserable lives will appall him,
all the more so in modern times, when the scorched-earth
policy has been succeeded by atomic destruction. The crimes

206

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The Ache oj Guile

against horses and other animals that men press into the
service of their insane passions, the recklessness in destroying
human habitations and works of art, full of the dignity and
genius of human labor, will rob him forever of any exagger­
ated hope for the species. When his martial passions are
kindled, this pygmy of creation is capable of defying the crea­
tive source of all life and flinging away all that he has formerly
cherished. Like the ancient Titans of fable, he seems intent
on storming the ramparts of heaven and calling down upon
himself a novel kind of punishment.

Faced with this presumptuousness of the human creature,
his closedness and dearth of love, the awakened soldier will
be driven to say in his heart: "I, too, belong to this species.
I am ashamed not only of my own deeds, not only of my na­
tion's deeds, but of human deeds as well. I am ashamed to be
a man." This is the culmination of a passionate logic which
hegins in warfare with the questioning of some act the soldier
has been ordered to perform contrary to his conscience. Con­
sciousness of failure to act in response to conscience can lead
to the greatest revulsion, not only for oneself, but for the
human species. How many soldiers have experienced in battle
a profound distaste for the human creature! I wrote of my own
despair:

It is eleven o'clock at night, and raining. The town is quiet, a
fresh breeze, rain-laden, is blowing. I sit alone in my room and
ponder my own limitations, wondering why the whole mystery oj
the universe must be closed, why I must plod on in the path of so
many others, subject to the same temptations and weaknesses.
Such nights as these have for years beaten in upon me my failures,
my blindness, and the impenetrable nature of the world.

The combat soldier who experiences this guilt of the human
creature deeply is likely to he caught in a serious inner crisis.

207



THE WARRIORS

On the one hand, he perceives the degraded and degrading
level of human life, as battle experiences can so well teach it.
And this degradation does not seem to be a consequence of
war conditions so much as war conditions are a consequence
of it. His whole being rebels against this condition; his con­
science warns him that it ought not to be. Neither he nor the
others deserve to be spared. All are such caricatures of what
they should be that death appears to be the only fitting reso­
lution. On the other hand, he is plunged into doubt about the
possibility of attaining to any other state. Perhaps men are
what they are by virtue of some hidden necessity in the nature
of things. Is it wise to expect anything else than the spectacle
now offered? The despairing soldier seeks for a reason why
men are the creatures they show themselves to be in combat,
and the reason that has appealed over many generations is
the idea of necessity. Freedom may be after all an illusion, and
the conscience within me, always protesting, be fatally wrong.

This classic struggle between freedom and necessity often
tears the heart of one who has advanced a little in the con­
sciousness of guilt. Perhaps the feeling of necessity is the final
refuge of that spirit in us which resists all attempts at self­
reproach, that uncivilizable ego which stops at nothing to
justify the self in its lowest, most aggressive manifestations.
Or it may be simply the hopelessness of the effort to rid one­
self of metaphysical guilt that makes belief in necessity so
attractive. At any rate, for the soldier in battle, the arguments
for necessity look very strong indeed. The voice of conscience
can be so easily explained away in terms of childhood indoc­
trination and religious superstition. It is tempting to attack
the validity of the feeling of freedom through its questionable
origin.

Some survive this crisis of faith only by yielding up their

208

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The Ache of Guilt

belief in the individual's responsibility for his actions. The
moral cynics, which modem wars generate in great numbers,
testify to a lost hope in mankind. Where cynicism is not mere
shallowness and show, it is the cry of men who have not been
able to endure the tension between their inner ideal and outer

reality. They resolve not to take the world or themselves seri­
ously any longer and give themselves over to enjoyment. But
everyone notices that there is a pathos about their gaiety, and
their frivolity is hardly contagious.

The soldier who does not succumb to the seductions of a

theory of necessity, but attempts, instead, to resolve the con­
flict through reason finds himself long exposed to indecisive
inner doubts. Gradually he may come to realize that neither
freedom nor determinism can be established satisfactorily ex­
cept in an emotional sense. In practice, it is not difficult to
convince himself that he is free to change. On reflection, how­
ever, the clarity that practice generates searches the past and
finds necessity, the other looks to action in present and future
and asserts freedom. In serene moments the soldier may be

very clear that he is partly free, in projecting himself into the
future and striving for an ideal; partly determined, in being
limited by what he has done and been. Yet whether his own
freedom is not a tiny aspect of some larger necessity will
escape his best efforts at analysis. At times he becomes con­
vinced that the two are not opposed at all, but in a mysterious
way two sides of the same coin.

The logic of most soldiers with a deep sense of guilt is a
logic of passion, and all the subtleties of the problem will
normally be lost on them. If at times such a soldier is too tired
out or occupied with other cares to feel distressed in any way,
the conflict is likely to be driven deeper into his unconscious
mind, there to weigh on his spirit and foster melancholy. What

209



--�-� ----

// ,

� �--
- -

_ _
---------. '.;;ii.\�l-;

!l Hhe longs for essentially is a simple piety, an attitude of grate- u
fulness and acceptance for the created. He loses whatever liPSIO'llilsatisfaction he formerly took in the destructive ways of war. o-
Man as Homo furens appears now to be a monster to him, are I
for this soldier has learned to cherish solely the human func- lion
tion as preserver and conserver of created things. F

Many a soldier in this predicament has found a blessed � n
release in the certainty that there is a higher order of reality Ifsu
where the irresolvable is resolved. It can be-indeed, often
is-a rather primitive trust in the ultimate justice and mercy
of a heavenly father, in whom justice and mercy are not at
odds. In a sense, the surrender here is similar to the satisfac­
tion in believing that necessity is ruler of all. But the difference
is apparent in the richness of meaning that religious trust
evidently brings. All previous struggles are seen to have been
necessary preparation and purification for present assurance.
In God all that appears endlessly difficult for human reason is
mysteriously purposeful and clear. Apart from the validity of
the religious resolution of guilt (and for the nonbeliever it
appears to be little more than an escape mechanism), the
efficacy of this path is beyond any other that mortal man has Dul
found.

If the soldier possesses a primary religious nature, he can
derive absolution and exaltation from his capacity for re­
pentance and surrender to the will of the divine. He loses any
need for death and sometimes, too, the fear of death as well,
for he has gained the great virtue of hope, which is perhaps t\�
the strongest hold in life and is that virtue which is peculiar M
to religion. If it does not free him from the usual troubles of is
the flesh, religious hope does assure him that there is a realm Ie
on the other side of human weakness and guilt. His one desire
is to act in accord with his hope in this supreme reality, and,

THE WARRIORS

210



e of grate.
whatever

ys of war,
ter to him,
uman fun�.

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The Ache 0/ Guilt

if he is a Christian, the prayer that will be most often on his
lips is: Not my will but Thine be done. Personal and political
guilt, which may have weighed upon him unendurably before,
are now resolved in this childlike trust in a single interpreta­
tion and interpreter.

For the more philosophical temperament, however, there
is no immediate solution or resolution to metaphysical guilt.
If such a soldier is strong enough, the insight gained through
his recognition of this most comprehensive form of guilt may
help him gradually win a new relationship to his fellows and
to the cosmos. Guilt can teach him, as few things else are able
to, how utterly a man can be alienated from the very sources
of his being. But the recognition may point the way to a re­
union and a reconciliation with the varied forms of the created.
In short, he may pass beyond his rejection of the human
species and gain a new grasp of his world. Such a soldier will
discover his future mission in life to be as far removed as

possible from the destructive work of war. He will be absorbed
in the reconstructive, the simple, and the truly humane arts.
Atonement will become for him not an act of faith or a deed,
but a life, a life devoted to strengthening the bonds between
men and between man and nature. He will not be in any
obvious way a reformer or a social worker or a preacher. But
among his friends he will be known as extraordinarily gentle,
sane, and wise.

These are some of the outcomes of a metaphysical convic­
tion of guilt. Some it can drive mad; some to the barely covert
wish for death. Others are overwhelmed by the belief that all
is necessary, and conclude very often that nothing really mat­
ters except pleasures of the senses. Still others triumph through
religious faith or through a philosophical reconciliation with
man and nature, thus using guilt as a means to a firmer and

211



THE WARRIORS

more enduring hold on life. Metaphysical guilt may well be
as prevalent in peace as in war, since all men incur it to
greater or lesser extent. Frequently, however, it necessitates
an excess of moral and political guilt to force our acceptance
of this reality. In this sphere, too, some men require the utter
exposure and extreme experiences of combat to come to their
true selves.

I find it hard to believe that in the wars of our day any
great number of soldiers attain the possibilities that lie in the
acceptance of guilt. As I indicated earlier, the reasons appear
to lie in a dominant mood of our times and in the different
nature of warfare. Yet it is hard to be sure, for few people
care to admit the guilt they sometimes feel. Possibly the pro­
found aversion to war that is widespread at the mid-century is
not entirely due to the political and economic fruitlessness of
recent wars and their unprecedented fury. Many who reveal
no outward evidence may be aware at some level of their

being that the moral issues of war are hardly resolvable on
present capital. They may realize that since wars cannot teach
nations repentance and humility, they must be abandoned if
we are not to lose our inherited humanistic culture. Cut loose
from traditional ties, Homo [urens is seen to be too exclusively
devoted to the devastation of the natural and human soil on
which he has hitherto been nourished.

If guilt is not experienced deeply enough to cut into us,
our future may well be lost. Possibly more people realize this
than I suspect; and veterans who did not show any traces of
it as warriors may now be feeling it keenly. At all events,
there are some who have made that secret journey within the
conscience and are building their lives on principles very
different from those they knew as unawakened ones.

212

La
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1M
some

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The Ache 0/ Guilt
well be Last night I lay awake and thought 0/ all the inhumanity 0/ it,

the beastliness of the war.... I remembered all the brutal things
I had seen since I came overseas, all the people rotting in jail,
some of whom I had helped to put there.... I thought of Plato's
phrase about the wise man caught in an evil time who refuses to
participate in the crimes 0/ his fellow citizens, but hides behind
a wall until the storm is past. And this morning when I rose,
tired and distraught from bed, I knew that in order to survive

dayanr this time I must love more. There is no other way. . . . (WaT
lie in tn� journal, December 8, 1944)
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213



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CONCLUSION

THE

FUTURE

OF WAR

Today we return to the [ront! A great change 01 mood has come
over us all.... Peace is in sight, or the illusion 01 peace. And we
spring forward in the hope that there will be no more weary
winters to spend on war-torn fronts. (War journal, July 6, 1944)

There is in many today as great a fear of a sterile and unexcit­
ing peace as of a great war . We are often puzzled by our con­
tinued failure to enlist in the pursuit of a peaceful world the
unified effort, cheerfulness in sacrifice, determination, and per­
sistence that arise almost spontaneously in the pursuit of war.
Rarely do we like to face the ultimate explanations of this
fact. The majority of us, restless and unfulfilled, see no su­
preme worth in our present state. We want more out of life
than we are getting and are always half-ready to chance every­
thing on the realization of great expectations. Though most of

215



,

-�-�--

/ ,

��----___:_ _- - �--
�

.. :&�j.
I�

THE WARRIORS

us do not know what we expect of life, we reject inwardly the
fate present existence has in store for us: isolation, petty
routines, the stale entrapments society sets for us. Reality is
so different from our dreams and the confident hopes of our
youth. Happiness is so elusive, won by the privileged few
alone. It is this crushing disappointment of our confident ex­
pectations that makes us welcome a chance to exercise the
military virtues, to escape into adventure, to feel the genuine
excitement of the communal and the sacrificial.

If by some magic all the peoples of the world could be
assured of eternal peace, a discerning observer would detect
genuine regret and disappointment, mingled, of course, with
heartfelt sighs of relief and joy.

I confess that in my adolescence and early manhood, before
World War II, I longed for one more war, in which I might
participate. Though I never spoke of such a wish, and regard
it today with considerable dismay, I cannot deny that it was
an important part of the aspirations of my youth. And I have
no reason to believe that my case is unique or singular. These
secret impulses cannot be disregarded. The ways of peace have
not found-perhaps cannot find-substitutes for the com­
munal enthusiasms and ecstasies of war. Unless we find a way
to change men's hearts, there appears to be small chance that
they will fall out of love with destructive violence.

In 1955 I talked with a Frenchwoman who had suffered

cruelly during the war from lack of food and anxieties for her
family, but was now living in comfortable bourgeois fashion
with her husband and son. We reviewed the misadventures of
those war days, and then she confessed to me with great
earnestness that, despite everything, those times had been
more satisfying than the present. "My life is so unutterably
boring nowadays!" she cried out. "Anything is better than to

216

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At

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The Future of War

have nothing at all happen day after day. You know that I do
not love war or want it to return. But at least it made me feel
alive, as I have not felt alive before or since."

And a few days later I listened to a strikingly similar report
from a German friend. Overweight, and with an expensive
cigar in his mouth, he spoke of our earlier days together at
the close of the war, when he was shivering and hungry and
harried with anxieties about keeping his wife and children
from too great want. "Sometimes I think that those were hap­
pier times for us than these," he concluded, and there was
something like despair in his eyes. Neither one of these people
was accustomed to such a confession; it came from both spon­
taneously and because I had known them in distress and in
prosperity. They were not longing for the old days in senti­
mental nostalgia; they were confessing their disillusionment
with a sterile present. Peace exposed a void in them that war's
excitement had enabled them to keep covered up.

Violence has been, I think, a perennial refuge from this
painful malady. It is hard to overestimate the extent to which
millions in our day feed upon violence and the threat of vio­
lence for their emotional nourishment. Magazines, newspapers,
movies, and television afford a kind of vicarious satisfaction
of this appetite. And potential violence is apparent everywhere,
in relations of parents and children, of workers and their em­
ployers, of racial minorities and majorities within society, and
many others. Though organized state violence, which is the
definition of war, is different from these, they are hardly
separable, for without the secret love of violence and the ac­
customing of the psyche to it, which daily experience provides,
effective fighting in war would be unthinkable.

Sometimes it takes penetrating eyes to notice the violent
undercurrents of daily life in our Western society, so common-

217



THE WARRIORS

place do they seem and so adept are public officials in keeping
the more overt out of sight. One can live in Germany, for
example, and be impressed with the harmlessness of social life.
Underneath the surface, however, slumber volcanic forces no
less restless than in previous decades of this century. Violence
remains, in the most subtle recesses of the cultural life of this

people, a dominant principle. The situation in other countries
of Europe, old and tradition-dominated as they are, is only
better in degree, if at all. Nor is it at all different in our own
land. Given the unfavorable circumstances to which most of

these countries have been subjected, we would be appalled at
the sinister and brutal forces our country could spawn over..

night. What happened under the Nazis in Germany might well
serve as an object lesson to all of us for a century to come.
Every nation, I believe, conceals in itself violent criminal
forces, waiting only for an opportunity to appear in daylight.

Most sobering of all to me is the realization my experience
has forced upon me that suffering has very limited power to
purge and purify; with the vast majority it is as likely to
deteriorate the character and will, or, at best, to leave no
lasting mark for good or ill. A theoretical observer might have
believed that the anguish of two world wars in a half-century
would have guaranteed a mood of repentance and reform,
freeing the next decades at least from the pride and arrogance
of nations. It has not worked out that way. Suffering appears
to improve characters already strong and sensitizes consciences
already awake; with others it produces most often the opposite
effect.

In Wiirttemberg near the close of the war our division over­
ran a concentration camp which had been recently emptied of
inmates and guards. It turned out that the prisoners had been
hastily pushed into a string of freight cars and carried as far

218

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abru
dOOJ
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and I
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The Future oj "ar

into the interior of Germany as possible before the guards
abandoned them. Our troops came upon them, opened the
doors of the freight cars, and allowed the starving band to
straggle into the nearest town, where the shocked citizenry
took up the task of nursing and caring for them. I spent one
long day in their midst and learned a few lessons about human
nature in extreme situations I shall not soon forget.

In their condition, glances were more eloquent than words,
and an extra pound of flesh on the bones, slightly more color
in the cheeks, told more plainly than denunciations could who
the oppressors within the camp had been. Like all the concen­
tration camps, this one contained men of a dozen nationalities
and social strata, imprisoned anti-Nazis, Jews, captured soldiers,
and, as always, a few professional criminals, transferred from
penitentiaries to prey upon the others and thus make the
guards' task an easier one. The only ones of the group physi­
cally strong, these criminals were looked upon by the liberated
men with unutterable hatred. Only their emaciation and
weakness prevented the inmates from tearing to pieces the
oppressors, who had been, by unanimous testimony, worse
than the Nazi guards. Never have I seen more evil eyes than
these I looked into during questioning. Though these eyes
burned with rage and contempt, there was fear, too, and I had
the impression that most of the criminals were probably re­
lieved to be made prisoners by us and quickly separated from
the rest.

I noticed at once that all the others rallied around one man,
who was praised extravagantly as one who had held them to­
gether against guards and internal traitors, had preserved their
courage and dignity, and become a natural leader over the
long months and years. When Frenchmen, of whom there were
many of education and position in the camp, lauded this man,

219



THE WARRIORS

I was astonished to learn that he was a German, a political
prisoner of long standing and a veteran of many concentra­
tion camps. I spent several hours in conversation with him and
discovered a man in whom deprivation had accomplished that
rare thing, a cleansing of all hatred and revenge from his
heart, leaving him almost uncannily sane and wise. At my
request, he outlined his ideas of what should happen in post­
war Germany and Europe, and I was as overwhelmed by the
moderation of his proposals for punishing our political foes
as by the practicality of his positive economic and govern­
mental programs. Here was that man among ten thousand,
more accurately, perhaps, among a million, who had used
dreadful experiences as means for advancement of his knowl­
edge and compassion. After a few hours with him I under­
stood why all the inmates, even those who hated with passion
everything German, spoke of him and to him with uncon­
cealed veneration.

The whole range of human character seemed to be exhibited
there by these few hundred survivors during the first day of
their liberation, and I was conscious of having stumbled onto
an hour of truth that would hardly be repeated, even by them,
in later days. There was for me in addition a kind of dread
portent of the future in the final words I had with their leader.
As I rose to leave, I asked him what he intended to do in the
immediate future. "Look for my family," he answered. "My
wife has been in concentration camps almost as long as I,
and I fear she is long since dead. My two boys were taken by
the SS as slave laborers to build fortifications in France and
I have reason to hope they are still living, somewhere in
Europe. My first task is to try to locate them, as soon as I am
strong enough to travel."

The vision of this ravaged man wandering over Europe in

220

seal

alivj
tutu
obse
soldi
town

than
I

I hal

were

nard1
chan�
mode
none

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s�iril
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�ilh passio�
�iili unco�·

he exhiliil��

fustctarol
led onto

iurope in

The Future of War

search of his scattered family, possibly finding his youngsters
alive but debauched by their associates, revealed one face of
future war that will be altogether intolerable. I had already
observed that the bitterest of all experiences for European
soldiers of World War II was to return to desecrated home
towns and to families brutalized by even worse experiences
than their own. With thousands of other American soldiers,
I had breathed a prayer of thankfulness that the homes we
were returning to were not like these. It was a good fortune
hardly to be repeated in the future. Now, in retrospect, no
change in the character of warfare seems as crucial as this
modern blurring of all distinctions between combatants and
noncombatants. What this means in terms of moral degrada­
tion experiences like this one just described showed me in
clearest focus. With civilians and soldiers alike physically and
spiritually displaced after future wars, who will be available
to heal the sick, the dispirited, and the lost?

Though there is widespread fear that our century in its
second half cannot afford or endure a resumption of the war­
fare that marred the first fifty years, there seems to be little
assurance that any secure way has been found to avoid it.
Some still quote fatalistically the Biblical lines about wars
and rumors of wars, and repeat, as men have done from time

immemorial, that because there have always been wars, wars
will continue forever, that human nature never changes, that
bellicosity is part of man's nature and we cannot therefore
eradicate war. Others maintain that another world war is
unthinkable because war is no longer, as it was until recently,
an instrument of foreign policy. "The rocket and hydrogen
bombs are forcing us to grow up," concludes one current re­
port whose author optimistically asserts that "we are further

221



THE WARRIORS

from world war than we have ever been before in my lifetime."
Then he adds lightly, but with a note of hysteria, often de­
tectable nowadays: "If I am proved wrong on this point no
reader of these lines will be able to expose me, for both he and
I will be dead."

The difficulty of prophecy lies in our inability to discover
what has really changed in the present situation and what only
appears to be changed. At a superficial level, optimism and
pessimism are equally inane. Optimists who base their beliefs
on the ground that modem weapons promise annihilation of
whole peoples and so render any hope of victory for one side
illusory forget, I think, that this situation is hardly permanent.
Under the conditions of whirlwind advance typical of our age,
how can anyone know what possibilities for defense, for
neutralization of great weapons, or what selective destruction
of military and industrial potentialities another decade will
bring forth? And if an ultimate Armageddon does not lie in
the future, who can be sure that a series of limited w.::rs fought
with more conventional weapons will not destroy our civiliza..
tion, less dramatically but no less thoroughly? So long as
there is no change in the will to warfare, it seems the sheerest
folly to trust, as many now want to do, to the deterrent power
of fear and armed might. In our present state of mind, these
are probably necessary, but they should delude no one into
believing there is any security in the present condition.

If wars begin in the minds of men, it would be wise to
search there for a basis of optimism. And there is, in fact, one
change that appears to be novel and important-our growing
unwillingness to glorify war and the military virtues. In the
literature of battle, there is a decreasing tendency to justify
war in terms of the heroic deeds it calls forth, to romanticize
its grandeur and exalt its personal sacrifices. No longer do we

222

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SUl



The Future oj War

in the West thrill so much to the sentiments of Horace that

point no it is sweet and noble to die for country. Nor do so many of
th he and us adhere to the belief, once so widespread, that wars cor­

respond to the will of God. Whether this change is due to the
altered nature of war or to a change in the nature of warriors,
I am not sure. But I do find a marked lessening of martial
appetite among the writers of the twentieth century.

It would be easy to cite pages of encomiums on warfare in
the nineteenth century, using German authors, as is usually
done. But here is one from our own Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Jr., veteran of our Civil War, extreme enough for all and
hardly untypical. Who of us today would adhere to the doc­
trine he wrote as a mature man of fifty-four: "War when you
are at it is horrible and dull, it is only when time has passed
that you see that its message was divine." Who today would
experience anything but disbelief when he continues:

I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the
universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there
is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same
world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true
and adorable which leads a soldier to throwaway his life in
obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little
understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has no notion,
under tactics of which he does not see the use.

jus!i�
ian!icize
r do we

There may well be those who still subscribe to such a faith;
in fact, almost certainly some exist in every nation. But it is
a safe guess that fewer exist in our decade than formerly, and
perhaps a reasonable prophecy that their numbers will steadily
decline, despite the fact that more men are under arms than
ever before. In this change of mentality, if it be one, there is
surely more promise than in any balance of terror.

On the other hand, it must not blind us to the negative ele-

223



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THE WARRIORS

ments in the present situation or make us forget the things
that have not changed. Too many of us no longer glorify war,
I fear, not because we have renounced the deeds of war but
because we find our military past inexplicable and dissociated
from the present. After a few years of peace we are unable
to believe in war and work out excellent reasons to show why
it cannot possibly recur. How difficult to realize that so many
of the men we brush against every day on the street have
killed and maimed other men. So innocent and harmless do

we appear, we veterans. We do not glory in this past, to be
sure, but that does not destroy its actuality. It requires only
a moment's reflection to convince us of the titanic forces that

lie beneath the surface of our quiet days. Let us remember how
quickly most of us adapted to the logic of combat. Was it not
a direct verification of the Freudian theory of reversion to an
earlier, primitive personality, which remains intact in the sub­
conscious, unmodified by our later, more sophisticated selves?

A tragic fact of our day, which outweighs all others, in my
judgment, is simply this: At a time when the most revolution­
ary demands are made upon us for conversion to a better

form of existence, we are so little ready for any inner change.
Few serious students of our society would have the temerity to
assert that Western man is more at home in the world now
than formerly, any less anxious, or more in charge of his
institutions and the larger forces of history. Indeed, most
agree that contemporary civilization in America and Europe
is unfulfilling in so many ways. Impersonality, monotony,
standardization, the scramble to consume and to achieve rna..
terial comfort induce at times a measureless ennui and the

longing for an escape no matter how dangerous and violent.

224

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The Future of War

If optimism and peSSImIsm have become increasingly ir­
relevant in our terrible dilemma, there is great reason nonethe­
less to practice the ancient virtue of hope. Though generally
neglected in recent centuries, when optimism about progress
was the rule, hope is that quality of character and virtue of
mind which is directed toward the future in trust rather than
in confidence. Its trust is that human beings will ultimately
prove capable, to the extent granted to mortals, of controlling
their own destinies through reason and wisdom. Poor as the
present outlook for peace is, we can take hope in the realiza­
tion, coming more and more to be accepted, that nothing ex­
cept ourselves prevents us from consigning wars to the un­
happy past. They correspond neither to God's will nor to the
dictates of necessity.

It was one of the most discouraged thinkers who wrote the
most hopeful of all paragraphs about a future warless world.
His prophecy ought to be regarded as recognition of man's
power to alter the course of events by undergoing an inner
change. I refer, curiously enough, to Friedrich Nietzsche and
to the following paragraph from The Wanderer and His
Shadow:

And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distin­
guished by wars and victories and by the highest development of
a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the
heaviest sacrifice for these things, will exclaim of its own free
will, "we break the sword," and will smash its military establish­
ment down to its lowest foundations. Rendering oneself unarmed
when one has been the best armed, out of a height of feeling­
that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace
of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in
all countries, is the absence of peace of mind. One trusts neither
oneself nor one's neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear,
does not lay down arms. Rather perish than hate and fear, and

225



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THE WARRIORS

twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared-this must
someday become the highest maxim for every single common­
wealth too.

This is surely one of the most remarkable prophecies in
Western literature. Nietzsche rightly sees that war-making
must be overcome through strength and voluntary decision of
a strong ..nation or group of nations; peace will never occur as
a consequence of weakness, exhaustion, or fear. Just as the
destructive lusts within us require superior power for their
containment, so does an institution as deeply rooted in our
society as is war require strength for its eradication. A peace
of the peoples is hardly something that will steal over us un­
awares. Prepared for by a gradual change in the disposition
of dominant groups, the final stroke will come in consequence
of a daring, voluntary, and decisive act of breaking the sword.
That can happen only when strength of mind and resolution
of will no longer feel the need of external supports like prestige
and protocol. It can happen even then only when a nation
"out of a height of feeling" takes the decision to risk every­
thing for a supreme good.

This is the second point of importance that Nietzsche makes.
In addition to moral strength, courage will be needed, and that
of the rarest kind, if war is to be extirpated from our race.
The strong are, unfortunately, not always the brave, particu­
larly not when they must expose themselves to the threat of
the less strong. How exceedingly unlikely that any of the
world's stronger nations today would have the courage to dis­
arm before their enemies! Only a few pacifists have the te­
merity to suggest such a thing. Who among our political lead­
ers is strong enough to take the responsibility for an act like
this? Many might say: "If I had myself alone to answer for,
it would be worth the risk. But what right have I to jeopardize

226

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The Future 0/ War

future generations of my people by so irrevocable an act as
this? Individuals can afford to take their lives in their hands;
rulers must tread the cautious path of security. As the people's
representative, my duty is to guarantee their safety as best I
can for the short time they are under my care. Dreamers and
utopians are fit for writing books; they have no function in
responsible political office."

This is the wisdom of the world today, and woe betide the
ruler who does not follow it. The vast majority of our people
want our "armed peace" no less than their representatives, or,
more correctly, they see no alternative to a peace of armed
might. The other path is too beset with risks, and the implicit
rule appears to be: Better to perish through caution than
through folly. Nevertheless, there have been, in rare moments
of world history, intellectual and political leaders who have
persuaded their people to take risks nearly as momentous as
this would be. They have been all too few, of course, and of
these few most have failed. Yet nearly all that is best in our
cultural heritage is traceable to their courage and resolution.

One day in the ripeness of time new leaders may appear
who will induce their peoples to take the irrevocable step, an
act so bold it will be greatly contagious and compel imitation.
Obviously such a deed will not be wholly the work of one man
or a small group. The people as a whole must be ready to
support the act. But even when large numbers have undergone
that inner change of mind and heart described in earlier chap­
ters, it will still require the most courageous of leaders to
break the sword in their name and thus assume responsibility
for possible failure. A man will be needed of great simplicity
and profound conviction.

The most important point of all in Nietzsche's prophecy is
a necessary motivation for breaking the sword. If permanent

227



THE WARRIORS

peace is ever to come over the world, it will be made possible
only by motives that are hardly yet operative in political life.
"Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than
make oneself hated and feared." If the rank and file of a great
nation could accept a statement of this kind, our future might
be assured. Most of us do not enjoy hating and fearing politi­
cal enemies, but we prefer it infinitely to perishing. We prefer
it even when we realize that, indulged in to an extreme de­
gree, hating and fearing destroy our humanity and make us
little better than beasts.

If so many of us did not prefer life on almost any terms, we
should recognize how intolerable are the burdens of fear and
hate which oppress us in our time. They induce us to spend
the greater part of our national substance on arms and armor,
thereby depriving our people of much-needed schools, hospi­
tals, libraries, and a thousand other benefits of organized po­
liticallife. Hate and fear impel us to propagandize our youth,
to twist and torment the truth into national and provincial
molds instead of allowing it the universal frame it requires.
Hate and fear narrow our sympathies, choke back our generous
impulses, make us caricatures of our possible selves. When
one considers these things and many more that might be men­
tioned in any just indictment of hate and fear, there need be
no surprise that any free spirit would prefer perishing to life
under their dominion.

However, the more important reason for breaking the
sword, says Nietzsche-and he is surely right-is that men
ought to choose death twice in preference to being feared and
hated. Until this becomes the highest maxim for a common­
wealth, as it is now for exceptional individuals, we shall not
have reached our goal. Such an impractical motive may on
first hearing astonish us, so contrary to our natural impulses

228

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The Future 0/ War

is it, and may occasion a contemptuous smile on the faces of
so-called realistic men of the world. Why should a nation re­
solve to be no longer feared and hated and be willing to pay
any price for such a resolution?

The answer is terribly hard to give to worldly minds who
like to calculate advantages and measure motives as they
measure materials. They will hardly comprehend a decision
made by Socrates many hundred years ago to suffer injustice
in preference to committing it because the former did less
harm to the soul. The reason a nation that seeks to be just
must abhor being hated and feared is not very different. To
hate and fear are evil and damaging to our inner life, but
being hated and feared are still more destructive of our higher
impulses and potentialities. Nothing corrupts our soul more
surely and more subtly than the consciousness of others who
fear and hate us. Such is our human nature that we cannot

possess power that others dread without becoming like the
image of their fear and hate. To possess dread power does not
corrupt us overnight; our features may remain benign for
years. But inevitably the awareness that others tremble or
grow enraged at sight of us poisons the mind and makes us,
individuals or nations, in the end into aggressive pariahs, dis­
trustful, capricious, and empty.

If nations ever reach the moral heights attained by excep­
tional individuals, they will shudder at the images of them­
selves their neighbors harbor. And they will do everything
thinkable to change these images. The image of itself that a
strong and gentle nation will one day find most intolerable is
of a colossus, jealous of its prestige and alert to pounce upon
any who challenge the established order. Conscious of its own
intentions and motives, such a nation will not rest until others
are aware of those intentions too. This can be accomplished

229



THE WARRIORS

only by deeds that cost something, not by words no matter
how eloquent. Whatever the cost, the strong and gentle nation
will bend every effort to close the gap between what it is and

what it seems to others to be, for the cleft between seeming
and being is a fatal one for the nation that is intent on reforma­
tion. A strong and gentle nation can only realize its aims when
others are fully aware that power and gentleness can coexist
and become the greatest benison for an unhappy world.

Nietzsche's prophecy declares that war must be ended sud­
denly, by a stroke that leaves no one in doubt about the sig­
nificance of the deed. As the context of the paragraph quoted
makes clear, Nietzsche believes that no gradualism can suc­
ceed here. On the contrary, men will have to make someday
an absolute break with their past, as dope addicts must with
their habit, if war is to pass away. The problem of war is no
ordinary one, to be combated and resolved like other social
issues. It demands an emotional reorientation of such a kind

that men will thenceforth date their liberation from that day.
In Biblical language, this transformation will be apocalyptic
in kind, comparable to the ancient command of the Lord: Let
there be light! Afterward, men will be unable to comprehend
how it was they could have lived in darkness. "Let us break
the sword," someone will declare, in effect, and out of a height­
ened feeling men will respond by destroying the engines of
destruction and will resolve to learn the ways of war no longer.

There is no doubt that practical men will scoff at such a
prophecy, contrary as it is to acceptable procedure of our time
and to the course of most previous history. Moreover, the
statesmen and internationalists who are laboring earnestly in
the United Nations and elsewhere to forge little by little the
fragile chains of peace are likely to consider the notion of a

230

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danl

T

sugg

agen
reliaJ
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inten

areas

I�Iaca
ana �
extenl
can hI
callr,
Ine

e1mote
ana n
men

insta

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form
men

terna

reta



matter
e nation
it � and

seeming
reformat
ims when
n coexist
d.

oded sua.

can sue·

somedsr
must wiili

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us oreal
a neign!.
�nes 01

o longer.
t suen 8

fur time
er, the

r.stIr in
�Ie the
r of a

The Future oj War

sudden end of war by an act of national will a foolish and
dangerous dream.

To be sure, it would be an irresponsible man who would
suggest that we give up the hard work of our international
agencies in order to wait for something so uncertain and un­
reliable as a popular response of the sort Nietzsche suggests.
What we need to do without fail is to redouble our efforts in
international affairs, seeking the development of retarded
areas, searching for legal justice in international disputes, and
placating national resentments through resort to conferences
and all the arts of compromise. If through these means we can
extend one by one the years of our present uneasy peace, wars
can be made to seem more outmoded sociologically, economi­
cally, and politically than they already do. Even if much of
the effort of our international agencies does not directly pro­
mote the cause of world peace, it is desirable in its own right
and must be done. Peace is, after all, not the only end that
men legitimately pursue, and no one really knows in many
instances what does contribute to peace in the long run.

Granting all this, I am nonetheless convinced that a trans­
formation of a deep-going inner sort will have to come over
men before war can be vanquished. All the machinery of in­
ternational diplomacy and the highest standard of living for
retarded peoples cannot bring about this change. It may be
poetic exaggeration to assert that this conversion will happen
suddenly; what is meant is that it will be a decisive change.
In earlier chapters I have described it as an awakening, a
coming to oneself, a discovery of friendship, a falling in love.
Human nature, the ultimate source of all hostility, must be
converted from its present state of hatred and fear in order to
liberate powers within us the existence of which is suspected
only by the tiny minority. Neither governments nor other in-

231



THE WARRIORS

stitutions are able to combat at present the destructive forces killer.
latent within most of us. The leaders we need are not likely to I kno1

spring from the earth; they, too, require for success a change hetwef
in the populace of a fundamental kind. vices a

The
How must we change, if there is ever to be opportunity to

break the sword once and for all? The question is as difficult
as it is suggestive and seductive. The temptation to forsake
the bounds of the probable is great, but all of us are weary of
socialist utopias which describe men who have unlearned cus­
tomary pleasures, needs, and desires. Realistically, we should
not expect men to alter their outer manner of life at all dras­

tically, for changes can be thorough and revolutionary with
comparatively little external reformation. The deepest changes
of all are indeed likely to return us to the workaday world
outwardly little affected, though our actions now proceed from
a different motivation and eventually reshape the human en­
vironment.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heracleitus once wrote that
"men are estranged from what is most familiar and they must
seek out what is in itself evident." The sentence illuminates,
as few others have done, much of my own war experience. The
atmosphere of violence draws a veil over our eyes, preventing
us from seeing the plainest facts of our daily existence. To an
awakened conscience, everything about human actions be­
comes then strange and nearly inexplicable. Why men fight
without anger and kill without compunction is understandable
at all only to a certain point. A slight alteration in conscious­
ness would be sufficient to put their deeds in a true light and
turn them forever from destruction. It would require only a
coming to themselves to transform killers into friends and
lovers, for, paradoxical as it may seem, the impulses that make

232

much r

lessly 1\
neing t�
a line �
Ihal wal
"Tne C�

oloeing
IO�lcal �
Dolo ext

Mtnou�
Halmol
tonemd

Hence

trulns,
ll�OUS t
success,

ulers wi

tnosewl
munlca

olners,'
oldal
nest an
Klna,
ana pr
Duthe
snoul



killers are not so different in kind from those that make lovers.
I know no other explanation for the notorious linkage in war
between the noblest and the basest deeds, the most execrable
vices and the sublimest virtues.

The feeling of being at home in the world is likewise not
much removed from the feeling of being exposed and hope­
lessly lost to all succor. And the sense of being thrown into
being that existentialist thinkers describe is removed only by
a line from the experience of man created in God's image
that was painted by Michelangelo in the wonderful fresco
"The Creation of Man." The change in us from the one state
of being to the other is, of course, profound, but the psycho­
logical distance to traverse is slight. Most of us have known
both extremes, often in an incredibly short span of time. It is
as though a thin but impenetrable wall separated the two states.
If at moments the wall seems easily torn away, usually it proves
to be more durable than our lives.

Hence the search for that most familiar and evident of all

truths, the belonging together of the human species, in re­
ligious terms, the brotherhood of man, is rarely attended with

inates, success. In WorId War II, I found myself separating those sol-
ee. The diers who were awakened and aware of their situation from

ventin� those who were lost in it. The former were those I could com-
. To an municate with and understand; the others were simply "the

others," beyond my sympathy and concern. Yet in moments
of clarity nothing is more apparent than the fact that the
best and the worst of men are different in degree only, not in
kind. The soldier who is moved by sentiments of friendship
and preservative love can reject the soldier-killer, for example,

only a but he cannot in justice deny common humanity with him. Nor

� and should the soldier of conscience who acknowledges his guilt
make at every level fail to recognize the potentiality of similar

forces
ely to

change

nity to
difficult

an en·

The Future 0/ War

233



THE WARRIORS

awakening in the most reckless and ruthless of his comrades
as well as in the enemy. There is too much evidence of such
transformations for any of us to doubt.

The case is hardly otherwise in our present uneasy state of
peace. To overcome this alienation from the evident and the

familiar we need, above all, a genuine closeness to each other
in contrast to the separation and isolation that now prevails so
widely. It is evident that the overcoming of physical space is
not bringing this nearness. As our planet becomes more and
more overcrowded and problems of living space and food grow
more pressing, the chances for conflict indeed become greater.
Evidently there is little or no relationship between physical
and psychical nearness, for it is possible to be alienated from
one's own roommate and be near to someone a thousand miles
removed in space.

So long as we are far from ourselves, it is impossible to be
near to others. Well-meaning people often assume that what
is required of us today is a wider set of relationships than is
possible within the simple and natural unities of family, town,
and province. The typical citizens of Kansas, Brittany, and
Formosa can hardly become close to each other in any sense
demanding intimate acquaintance with one another. What all
of us need to gain is a closer relationship to those immediately
about us. He who knows what genuine friendship is or the
fullest type of erotic love cannot be as estranged from self or
others as they are who have never experienced these things.

This nearness to each other, even if it be with one other
human being, promotes greatly the development of reflection
and self-awareness. Persons who know intimacy are driven to
put the important questions: Who am I? Why am I? What is
to be my function in life? The kind of knowledge they seek is
not of a subtle kind, commonly miscalled philosophical, which

234

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The Future 0/ ".ar
an untutored man could not be expected to have. On the con­
trary, it is this knowledge that people of little formal learning
are frequently pursuing more avidly than the falsely sophisti­
cated. Because they are concerned with the important ques­
tions, they sometimes achieve the important gift of simplicity.
I know of no better way to reach the familiar and the evident
than by stripping away superfluities in our emotional, re­
flective, and social selves, and in our external environment as
well. Simplicity manifests itself in directness of approach to
other human beings, in the absence of dissembling and guile.
Knowing himself, the simple man is conscious that the man
he is addressing is, in essentials, not different from himself,
and it is the human being in the other that he insists on speak­
ing to.

A condition of this intimacy, all too rarely recognized by
most of us, is a different attitude toward the objects of nature
around us. A habit of intimacy with the things of nature can
fan the creative sparks within us and strengthen the concern
for preserving ourselves and others. It is not a misty senti­
mental feeling for nature writ large that we require; but,
rather, a recognition of our dependence on the most humble
objects of everyday use and of their importance and place
in existence. Until we learn to experience more simply and
directly our gardens and trees, the skies above us, and all
the objects amid which we move and work, we will find it
difficult to achieve closeness to neighbors and even to our­
selves.

I have become convinced that the familiar and the evident
are so remote because we moderns have increasingly separated
ourselves from nature by replacing a primary artistic response
to things with a technological mentality. Contrary to the will
of many scientists, our science has become much too often an

235



THE WARRIORS

instrument for the exploitation of things and people. We have
become so preoccupied with power and control over nature
that we have lost an important dimension of our being, the
disposition of thankfulness, of commemoration, of perceiving
and enjoying something for its own sake. Instead of viewing
these immediate objects of our environment in terms of their
own being, we have come to regard them solely in terms of
what they are for us. And to such an exploitative mentality,
nature's voice becomes mute. Approached as material merely,
to be worked up and pressed into the service of a self-styled
lord of creation, she contains no revelation and no blessing.

To the man who is not interested in what a thing is in it­
self and for itself, no intimate relations are possible. Nature
can be infinitely abused by such a one, but by no means under­
stood. Only the cherishing, object-centered eye of the artist
latent in all of us can make and keep us aware that nature
does not exist only for us, but in her own right as well. The
artistic gaze alone can discern those qualities in nature that
are able to heal our restlessness and overcome our boredom,
by enhancing the value of the commonplace. Art can recon­
cile us to our individual and collective fates as nothing else
can, except perhaps religion. But art (I do not speak of the
fine arts) has declined in our society as the narrow utilitarian
ideal has grown, and the results are lamentable.

The effect on our religious traditions of this appropriative,
ego-centered disposition of mind has been hardly less disas­
trous. Religion, like art, points to something greater and more
worthy than the self and impels us to pay it homage. Religion
relates man to his origins, aiding him thus in the search for
a reason for existence. Modern man finds it hard indeed to

discover anything in the universe worthy of worship. More
often than not he conceives himself to be at the top of an un-

236

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The Future of War

ordered creation, able to survey the whole and to do with it
what he will. But few are ready to worship him; he has demon­
strated often enough that he is lacking in divine serenity and
endurance.

Moreover, he himself knows full well that he can be no
proper god, for he is filled with a longing for something or
someone to whom to belong. In the face of an overpowering
universe, he realizes, consciously or not, that his freedom and
independence are relative and puny. What is missing so often
in modem men is a basic piety, the recognition of dependence
on the natural realm. And they feel the need of this piety with­
out possessing it. There is no dearth of religions in our time,
and they fulfill certain needs, but there is a general absence
of religious passion for belonging to an order infinitely trans­
cending the human. Separated from close association with
nature and intimacy with her ways, we find it difficult to do
homage to nature's god.

This separation of man from nature as a consequence of our
too-exclusive interest in power is in part responsible for the
total wars of our century. More than we ever realize, we have
transferred our exploitative attitudes from nature to man. In
total war, men become so much material, and civilian popula­
tions, like soldiers, have to be ravaged and subdued. Dis­
tinctions between innocent and guilty, the permissible and the
prohibited, become extinguished. Men and machines approach
each other more nearly. The most painful impressions of
World War II for me, as I have said, were the ruthless
trampling down of the works of nature and the innocent prod..
ucts of human art. Try as I might, I cannot but recoil, even in
memory, from the destructive fury of a modern army directed
upon the things of nature and her creatures, all untainted by
any partisanship. The butchering of each other was almost

237



THE WARRIORS

easier to endure than the violation of animals, crops, farms,
homes, bridges, and all the other things that bind man to his
natural environment and help to provide him with a spiritual
home.

Since that war, there has been no convincing evidence of
change in this exploitative mentality. The fashioning of the
atom bomb seems to me too dangerously typical of the modem
mind, and the recent experiments with the hydrogen bomb
an unrecognized blasphemy. Hardly anyone considers it pos­
sible that the poisoning of fish in the ocean by these experi­
ments might be worthy of condemnation. Man can sin only
against man, it seems, or possibly against God, not against
nature. That the ocean should be violated, a region hitherto
relatively immune from destructive lusts, seems to most, ap­
parently, nothing else than a triumph of natural science.

In the desperate state of human relations in our day, one
can understand the argument for testing weapons in order to
keep national defenses strong. But I am objecting to the spirit
in which it is done, involving, as it does, indifference to all
that is not of human origin or use. This lack of concern stands,
I believe, as a great barrier to the elimination of war. Before
expecting man to spare his brother, we must persuade him to
spare those things around him that contribute to his life as
greatly as his brothers do. The growth of that preservative
love and care which is in strongest opposition to destructive
lusts involves an intimacy with things of which too many of
us have as yet hardly an inkling.

The gift of nearness to the familiar and evident is happi­
ness. Whatever else is true, we in the West will not learn to
break the sword until we have happier populations. If there
are any laws of psychology in this area at all, one must be
that a happy people is a peaceful people. The capacity for

238

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The Future 0/ War

happiness which most of us possess receives too rarely the sus­
tenance it needs to become more than a capacity; more often
it shrinks as we grow older. The longing for a paradise, which
our hearts believe to be possible but which we cannot find,
robs us of serenity; the large expectations of our youth remain
unfulfilled. Though the components of happiness are no doubt
many and not the same for all, emotional and intellectual
intimacy with others is surely the one component essential to
nearly all of us. For the few, association with the things of
nature can of itself produce a happiness that suffices to ful­
fill the more solitary members of our species. But, for the
majority, nearness to the things of daily existence can be a
means for entering into closeness with other human beings,
whether it be the comradeship of labor, the partnership of
marriage, the friendship of kindred minds, or other associa­
tions.

More than anything else, happiness can provide a secure
bottom to the world, sufficient to persuade us that we are no
accidents on this planet. Happiness alone can transform the
dull and colorless daily scene into an order pregnant with
meaning and delight. When a person finds a friend to whom he
can open his heart, when a woman finds a man she can love
and to whom she can bear children, when any of us find a
community we can love and serve, our little lives take on a
significance we had not dreamed of. Far from being the restless
ones who welcome war as a possible path to forbidden experi..
ence, we experience the threat of war as completely intoler­
able. Those who have a stake in peace realize too well that

war can occasion the loss of all.

Nations containing genuinely happy citizens would shrink
from exposing their great fortunes to the cruel chances of com­
bat far more than wealthy nations now shun war from fear

239



THE WARRIORS

of loss. More than this, a nation with happy citizens would
encounter greater difficulty in maintaining a hostile disposi­
tion in themselves or others, since happiness always presses
toward universality. The people who one day break with their
military past and declare that they no longer can endure to
he hated and feared will not only be a happy people; their deed
will be largely a result of their happiness. Having experienced
closeness to each other, they will be eager to extend the ex­
perience to others. And for this they may be willing to take
the greatest risks, more trustful and of larger faith than we.

I have often meditated on my chance meeting with the old
hermit in Italy, and have tried to puzzle out why he impressed
me so much. Perhaps it was not only his ignorance of the war
and my inability to explain why we were fighting, but also
certain qualities I sensed in him which were in starkest con­
trast with my own state. What these qualities were it is still
not easy for me to name exactly. Born on a farm and brought
up with country people, as I have been, I am wary of senti­
mentalizing the old man of the mountain. I have no doubt he
possessed the ordinary human quota of meanness, dishonesty,
and avarice. He and his hermit kind can obviously do little for
the peace of the world now or in any conceivable future. But
there was about him a rare peaceableness and sanity that I
have slowly come to associate with a better, peaceful world.

Though he had probably never seen an American in his
life, he welcomed me beside him on the grass, and I have
never felt less like an intruder in my life. Despite the handicap
of language, we began to talk at once of important things as
naturally as if we knew one another well. There was no
strangeness about our meeting, our talk, or our parting, though

240

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The Future 0/ War

the experience as a whole was the strangest one of the war for
me.

I felt in him the strength of his close association with the
things of nature. The serenity in his eyes, voice, and move­
ments was not the dullness of the lout or vacant-minded. Even
if he had lived through none of the storms more sensitive and
gifted people experience, he seemed to possess a constancy,
patience, and endurance not often known to them. I could not
guess and did not ask what his history had been and why he
had chosen this life, but it was clear that he had gained a kind
of wisdom from solitude which enabled him to live simply and
happily. In fact, he appeared to be singularly at home in the
world, as though he had sprung from nature herself and
thought of himself as her authentic child. Harmless and wise
and innocent, he dwelt here in the mountains, ready to chat
with all who chanced by and to ask them anew about those
strange and infernal noises in the valley which he would never
understand. When a large number of people become, like him,
truly unable to understand why nations war with one another,
the human species will no longer be in mortal danger of ex­
tinction.

Possibly his gentleness and simplicity had taught him, too,
not to exaggerate the significance of the human story in rela­
tion to the rest of nature's household. At least watching the
stars at night, as soldiers often have to do on lonely guard duty
or in their foxholes, can rob one of the arrogance that makes
men believe their history is the beginning and end of the
things that are. After my visit with the old man, I drew com­
fort from the words of Plato: "Think you . . . that the little
affairs of men here below are of great interest to the God who

reigns over all."
Far from making a man sad and defeatist, this perspective

241



THE WARRIORS

can instil a kind of serenity. The larger purposes of the uni­
verse, though far transcending our weak powers of compre­
hension, may, after all, not be dependent on the history of
man. If we are not the chief end of creation, as assuredly we
are not, the whole in which we are included as a small sum

may have meaning and purpose. Though man's wars may be
too small from a cosmic vista for any pattern to be descried,
they may, nevertheless, be purposeful enough if one could see
events with less myopic vision than we possess. In any case,
it is time that we human beings abandoned the overweening
faith that only through us can the objectives of creation be
realized. That faith needs to be replaced by the confidence
that, even if we vanish from the earth sooner or later as a

consequence of our failures, that, too, will be within the com­
pass of a Being incomparably greater and more enduring than
the race of man.

About this last there is for me an impenetrable mystery, as
there is about the nature of man himself. War reveals dimen­
sions of human nature both above and below the acceptable
standards for humanity. In the end, any study of war must
strive to deal with gods and devils in the form of man. It is
recorded in the holy scriptures that there was once war in
heaven, and the nether regions are still supposed to be the
scene of incessant strife. Interpreted symbolically, this must
mean that the final secrets of why men fight must be sought
beyond the human, in the nature of being itself.

242



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