Out There, by Charles W. Whitehair (HC, 1918, with 16 illustrations, $5)
"We are at the Front. 'Zero' is Thursday morning- Tomorrow morning. The big push is now on.
Long after midnight we crawl into our bunks; but sleep is impossible, because of the clanking, stamping feet of the thousands of men who are marching by. The men marching past are 'going in'...
'Coming out' is another story."
Thus starts Whitehair's story of life in the trenches. There is no way of knowing for sure, but I suspect the story he tells is his own.
The 20th Century started with a swell of pride in new technologies, and the belief that they would lead to a better world. Hope for a bright future would soon shatter. A shocked world would not recover till the end of the century when we would again have hopes, till the Towers fell.
After it was over, people called WWI "The War to End All Wars". Never, never, it was thought, could another war like that happen. People used books and movies to tell the whole story of war's carnage, so we would learn the lesson, and never wage war again. (I used to collect stereoviews, those double photos on cards that you could view in 3D. Those WWI photos could not have been more disturbing- bloated dead horses, bloated dead boys.)
As everyone knows, war would come again, and soon. Even now, have we learned anything? Who decides what is a righteous war, and what is not? Have we always worn the white hat? What has to happen for it to be worth it to risk people's lives and emotional well being? Will there ever be a time when there is no war, and therefore no need to ask those questions?
Look for this book in the military section, avail. 2/29.
