Shock and awe cause mental and physical stress of barbaric war economies that program, condition and indoctrinate youths into the slippery, muddy slope of combat. Dirty war makes murderers of Congress and warmonger taxpayers who condone futile, needless aggression.
For centuries war has been described as hell. The politicians who never experience the extreme stress and shock of war, mentally and physically, are Leo Tolstoy and Emile Zola have tried to get the injustice of aggression across to the public but bloody wars are stilled committed in hot blood.
Irwin Shaw who wrote the book The Young Lions describes how wars shoot off arms and legs, but do it all over again, for no reason. Actors Marlon Brando, Dean Martin and Montgomery Cliff portray the real drama of wars, with youths caught up in the tragedy of political aggression, Rhetoric in the movie version includes, "The only way to stop wars is to stop fighting." A war-torn child is symbolically walking through a cloud of dark gun smoke, smoldering ruins and slaughter of the battlefield with bayonets under his arms as crutches–mirroring the delusions, self-deception and detachment from civil life that combat soldiers encounter.
All's Quiet on the Western Front by Erich M Remarque, a WWII German soldier, centers around centuries-old war that takes away the youth of its combatants. This book and its sequel, The Road Back, were banned and burned in Nazi Germany.
"Breaking" Morant, a play by Kenneth G. Ross, who wrote the true story about Henry Morant who broke horses, is set in the second Anglo-Boar War of 1889 to 1904 in South Africa, It centers around high brass making bush Cavalier soldiers talking the rap for shooting nine Dutch farmer Boars and a German Missionary under the policy of "take no prisoners." After a court marshal on the battlefield, the soldiers who followed the orders are convicted as scapegoats–one for life imprisonment and the other two shot by a British firing range.
Ernest Hemingway, Farewell to Arms, also shows the pathos of combat, described in my essay Angels for Peace–Zillions of Voices.
The Red Badge of Courage about the Civil War by Stephen Crane reveals a soldier fleeing from danger, a natural instinct from being caught in the reality of satanic battle–just as a squirrel scampers away before a shot gun ends his life. Those who sacrifice lives of combat soldiers seem to be proud of their action, by staying out of harm's wary.
Protagonist Mark Twain in real life fled when he was caught in cross-fire during America's Civil War. Thanks to his courage to recognize the monster of war for what it i, the world has benefited from his genius in writing.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, while a general in WWII, supported war, but after having experienced its demonic weapons of massive holocaustal devastation, he had a change of mind and heart as he wrote, "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
Albert Einstein, too, held reproach for war. He wrote, "It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but the act of murder." Who do we trust? These great men or the worlds' committers who wage reckless wars?
Author's tweets for international peace and peace of mind