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Chapters (51)
  1. Introduction by Michael Bronski
  2. BEGINNING
  3. II
  4. III
  5. IV
  6. V
  7. VI
  8. VII
  9. VIII
  10. IX
  11. X
  12. XI
  13. XII
  14. XIII
  15. MIDDLE
  16. II
  17. III
  18. IV
  19. V
  20. VI
  21. VII
  22. VIII
  23. IX
  24. X
  25. XI
  26. XII
  27. XIII
  28. XIV
  29. XV
  30. XVI
  31. XVII
  32. XVIII
  33. XIX
  34. XX
  35. END
  36. II
  37. III
  38. IV
  39. V
  40. VI
  41. VII
  42. VIII
  43. IX
  44. X
  45. XI
  46. XII
  47. XIII
  48. XIV
  49. XV
  50. XVI
  51. About the Author

But why the need to concern oneself with the welfare of the soldier? The disorders of war had beset those left behind. The calm poised faces of traveling or returned servicemen made him wonder why he should feel or have felt in the past an anxiety for them. Young men back from the fronts, their chests beribboned with the decorations of battle, showed a composure—a dignity, reserve, and freedom from strain—that could not be found on the faces of clerks traveling to and from their offices.

The war photographs which had been drawing his melancholy attention for so many months—what were they but a nostalgia for youth? He envied the solidarity, fraternity and fellowship of servicemen (which they themselves would scarcely be aware of till it was a thing of the past) and felt keenly his forty-­four years. The thousand pictures of GIs at chow, the young fliers strapping on their parachutes as they ran for the bombers tuning up in the gray dawn, the helmeted half-­naked leathernecks grinning for the camera at the wheel of bulldozers, the packed waving soldiers crowding the rail of the transport and all of them smiling as if they were setting forth on some wonderful holiday, the marines holding their guns aloft as they jumped down the landing platforms or sprawled or crouched on the furious beach—these were today’s tokens of romance, pored over by millions, vicariously experienced by men and women alike. His desire to be part of it was not diminished one whit by reminding himself that the aim of it all was death.

A night breeze had sprung up and the window shade flapped; it brought him back to where he was. Suddenly it seemed to him a preposterous irony that he should be lying here, so near to Ethel’s bed and to her, indulging in fantasies as remote from their marriage as the poles from each other. He could almost think: It’s a good thing Ethel doesn’t know what I’m thinking; for he had become completely oblivious, for the moment, to the issues which had been raised the night before. He was ashamed that his mind could have wandered so far afield. With an effort (for, like an adolescent daydream, the other had been a pleasant indulgence), he brought himself back to Ethel, to marriage, to earth.