Today’s Blog is simply a short quote from a book about war I’m rereading – with some background.
Background first: Some years ago I was lucky enough to take a class with, become short friends with James Jones, the author of
From Here to Eternity
. At that time in Miami, Florida, Jones was writing on the last novel in his war trilogy – even read some of it to us in class. The quote below is from the very end of Whistle, from Johnny Strange, the last one of the old company:
He faces finally the fact that he simply cannot go through the whole process again. He simply can’t go into England and into Europe with this new outfit knowing what he knows from the Pacific, and sit back in his relatively safe position as a mess sergeant and watch the young men be killed and maimed and lost. He can’t stand being a witness again to all the anguish and mayhem and blood and suffering.
James Jones, Whistle, Delacorte Press, 1978. p 451
Johnny Strange has just stepped off his troop ship into the ocean.
Jo Ann Lordahl
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