Let the story tell itself.

You don't know. When I'm out there at night I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything, it's like I'm full of electricity and I'm glowing in the dark - I'm on fire almost - I'm burning away into nothing - but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I am.

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.

He had an opinion of himself, I think, that was too high for his own good. Or maybe it was the reverse. Maybe it was a low opinion that he kept trying to erase.

A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.