conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled What It Is Like to Go to War about War, Best, Books with the genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Leaders & Notable People
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: <a href=" http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000713941"><strong>Amazon Best Books of the Month, September 2011</strong></a>: With unflinching honesty, bestselling author the author captures What It Is Like to Go to War in his compassionate, powerful narrative on Vietnam. By recounting experiences that, outside the arena of war, are horrifying or embarrassing for the soldiers who lived them, the author exposes veterans' self-destructive code of silence as the price for re-entering our society. American pop culture celebrates the warrior spirit, winning the battle, but the reality for soldiers is that reconciling the moral conduct we are taughtwith the brutal acts we do in war has been a problem for warriors of good conscience for centuries. the author tempers the brutal truths of fear, power games, and courage with a thoughtful prescription for our soldiers well-being; caring for our soldiers and their families differently will benefit society as a whole. In What It Is Like to Go to War , the author sets a new standard for understanding the experience of war. -- Seira Wilson
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000713941"><strong>Amazon Best Books of the Month, September 2011</strong></a>: With unflinching honesty, bestselling author the author captures What It Is Like to Go to War in his compassionate, powerful narrative on Vietnam. By recounting experiences that, outside the arena of war, are horrifying or embarrassing for the soldiers who lived them, the author exposes veterans' self-destructive code of silence as the price for re-entering our society. American pop culture celebrates the warrior spirit, winning the battle, but the reality for soldiers is that reconciling the moral conduct we are taughtwith the brutal acts we do in war has been a problem for warriors of good conscience for centuries. the author tempers the brutal truths of fear, power games, and courage with a thoughtful prescription for our soldiers well-being; caring for our soldiers and their families differently will benefit society as a whole. In What It Is Like to Go to War , the author sets a new standard for understanding the experience of war. -- Seira Wilson
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first paragraph for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: What It Is Like to Go to War
  Almost all call signs, names, nicknames, and their origins have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals and their families.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: four more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: By the fall of 1967 I couldn't defend the war politically. Nor did I. John and I basically agreed it was a mistake. But I would get news of friends getting killed or wounded. I think I kept hoping, probably like the mystified battered wife who keeps hoping her husband will change, that there really was some sort of reason behind the tragedy, that it would all turn out okay and understandable in the end.
  Above all, we shared a fierce passion not to be cocktail critics. For some reason, neither John nor I could sit it out with student deferments like others. The war kept at us. We both felt we were just hiding behind privilege. The discussions got more heated; the stakes were raised. Stay and be a coward, go to Sweden or Algeria and be a deserter and never go home again, or sign up and kill other people for no apparent good reason or be killed yourself. I kept thinking of my friends, both from the Marine Corps and from my high school, already fighting and dying in Vietnam. Then there was Meg: beautiful, deep, warm Meg. I was in love for the first time in my life.
  I lived racked at two levels. I could stay with friends, parties, studies, and, most important, Meg or choose between exile for life and war. Worse, the wrong war. For me the penalty of refusing to fight wasn't draft dodging but desertion, a far more serious crime, involving a military trial instead of a civilian one.
  Studies lost all value. Who cared what Locke, Berkeley, or Hume thought about reality? I couldn't go to a party without thinking of my Marine friends, terrified in the jungle while I was hanging on to Meg's very beautiful warm body with one arm and holding a pint of bitter in the other. Oxford, a place I'd happily be buried in should I happily die there someday, became a cold gray limbo between black choices. And the one choice my conscience would not allow was to sit it out in college, a cocktail critic.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last four paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Militaries of true democracies now take great pains to minimize the deaths of innocent people. In that same war in which my parents found affection and harmony on the home front, both sides were killing civilians by the hundreds of thousands, in horrible ways, and not even thinking about it much. Many of the people who fought in that war are still among us. This is incredibly rapid change. Military forces are often employed on missions of mercy. The militaries of most democracies have successfully integrated women into all specialties except those involving close physical combat. Ares and Aphrodite have formed a union, but, like all unions, it isn't without its difficulties and it takes a lot of work.
  I have tried to explain what it was like for me to go to war: why I went in the first place, what happened while I was there, and how it was when I came home.
  What got me into the temple of Mars was a contradictory mixture of patriotism, genetic imperative, the draft, a yearning for transcendence and escape from the humdrum, a need to prove my manhood, and just plain self-testing and curiosity. Inside the temple I experienced a surprising love for those who entered with me. There I prayed for deliverance from horror, carnage, and death. Never have I felt closer to God and more baffled by the problem of evil. In that temple, I experienced transcendence and, momentarily, ecstasy. I also experienced flawed humanity and raw savagery, my own and that of others, beyond comprehension for most people. I've never approached the intensity of these feelings after returning home. I do, however, find disturbing reminders of the bad ones when I read the newspapers, hear jingoistic claptrap, awake from nightmares, or see unbidden images welling up from my memory at the most awkward times. I have learned to find gentle reminders of the good ones when I write fiction, play the piano, share holidays with my family, see old comrades, and make love. I still long for the stronger feelings of war's transcendence and ecstasy, but, like the recovering alcoholic, I also know their destructive and dangerous aspects.
  We must be honest and open about both sides of war. The more aware we are of war's costs, not just in death and dollars, but also in shattered minds, souls, and families, the less likely we will be to waste our most precious asset and our best weapon: our young. The more we recognize the feelings of transcendence and the psychological and spiritual intensity of war, the easier it will be to prevent their appeal from clouding our judgment about going to war the next time. What ultimately will save us from the appeal of war is achieving this transcendence and intensity through other means. The substitute for war is not peace; peace is a seldom-achieved political state of being. The substitutes are spirituality, love, art, and creativity, all achievable through individual hard work.