Philip Caputo War Quotations

War, the ordinary man's most convenient means of escaping from the ordinary.

In a guerrilla war, the line between legitimate and illegitimate killing is blurred. The policies of free-fire zones, in which a soldier is permitted to shoot at any human target, armed or unarmed, further confuse the fighting man's moral senses.

I guess every generation is doomed to fight its war...suffer the loss of the same old illusions, and learn the same old lessons on its own.

There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier's sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.

In wartime, the degree of patriotism is directly proportional to distance from the front.