And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life.

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

I cannot remember much, I cannot feel much. Maybe erasure is necessary. Maybe the human spirit defends itself as the body does, attacking infection, enveloping and destroying those malignancies that would otherwise consume us.

you can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty.

...precisely where the land touched water at high tide, where things came together but also separated.

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

When your afraid,reallyafraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world.