The survivor’s burden

....When you get out to the really exposed positions — the units that are doing the actual fighting — there seem to be good soldiers and bad soldiers and that’s about it. The men are far less concerned about social or political issues than the folks back home who sent them there in the first place.

In the platoon I was with there were men of every race in the world, every political position, every economic background. I never heard these differences discussed in any meaningful way. As one of the soldiers said to me, “There are guys in the platoon who straight-up hate each other, but we’d all die for each other.....’’

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bruno said:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/05/30/the_survivors_burden/

Sebastian Junger has written a really thoughtful piece in today's Boston Globe that I believe rings absolutely true.

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