"storytelling is a primal need. I think that need encompasses both the teller and the listener. For the teller of a war story, the telling gives disordered experience order and therefore meaning;.... For the listener, the story makes huge and terrible events in history assume human faces and human voices,"

In this book Samuel Hynes uses the letters, memoirs, and diaries merging autobiography, history and literature, to inform us what war was really like for those who actually fought it and how modern warfare has evolved. Hynes focuses on the soldiers of the two world wars and Vietnam, taking the reader to the Somme, the Salerno beachhead, the Egyptian desert, Khe Sanh, a Spitfire over the Channel and a sailor on the Coral Sea: as well as the victims of these wars- the POWs, the survivors of the Nazi death camps and the two atom bombs.

Hynes writes that the prospect of excitement and great danger have always driven young men to volunteer. However, the romance has been considerably diminished as the last century progressed as war became ever more dependent on lethal technology, where men are maimed or killed in shocking numbers without ever seeing an enemy. Often, they returned home disillusioned about the real reasons behind them being there, but many also admitted that they wouldn't have missed it for the world.

In this book Hynes gives a voice to the vast majority of the combatants who are never normally heard from. Hynes has obviously trawled through an awful lot of British and American literature in particular to find his material, but for me has produced a well written piece of prose that felt more novelistic rather than academic. As an ex-serviceman myself, although I hasten to add that I didn't serve during any of these wars, I found this an interesting and thought provoking read that has made me question my own reasons for joining up. ( )

My grandchildren frequently ask me why I read military history, especially memoirs written by servicemen and women. My explanation has been that because of when & where I was born, I never had to go to war and I try to imagine how I would have reacted to some of the situations soldiers find themselves in. Of course I do not know how I would have behaved so I read how others faced the dangers.
In this volume, Mr. Hynes tries to explain how how soldiers have gone to war and how they have reacted to what they faced. He explains that there is always a war going on somewhere but he chose to centre his research on three main conflicts- WW I, WW II and Vietnam. Using excerpts from memoirs, letters and books written by ex-servicemen, he tries to answer the question I have been asked by my grandchildren. He does a remarkable good job. He is also very qualified to write this having been a Marine bomber pilot in the Pacific Theatre and now a professor of literature. ( )