The Forgotten Soldier
War is a breeding ground for fear, and fear in turn is a sharp strangler of innocence and moral structure. This is Guy Sajer's experience—rather than a war of man reaching unimagined peaks of bravery, his account of WWII in his memoir, The Forgotten Soldier, is a bombardment of confusion, terror, and uncertainty. One of his most striking images of the nature of war and its impact on the human condition is captured, ironically, not in any atrocity imparted on a fellow soldier or refugee, but rather in the briefly mentioned, marginal demise of an animal. During an anxious two-day wait for passage off the Hela Peninsula, Sajer chooses to provide only one anecdote, which turns out to be one of his most potent:
There were two more attempted Russian air raids. The last victim I was to see was a dirty white horse.
A Russian plane had been hit, and was disintegrating above us. We all watched as the forward part of the plane, whose racing engine gave off a long howl, plunged toward......
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