I admired the work ethic of the cowboys I read about. The idea of these young people taking on this much responsibility was impressive. I would like modern readers to have an appreciation of this.

How deep is your game?

Yeah, that's funny, huh?...Something hurts you real bad and you get used to it. Like being hurt becomes part of who you are.

And what I was feeling was the wonder Of being more than me, of being more Than mere here and now allowed I had become a shining star, a burning nova Exploded with love Flying through an endlessly Expanding universe Away from the me that was Toward a me that is beyond Understanding.

I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.

We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

But in the end, we learn we can forgive most people. The cushion of mortality makes their wrongdoing seem less dark, and whatever roads they traveled seem less foolhardy.