Not acting
like a male figure would.
Willie Morris 1934
James Jones and his
friend Willie Morris and their two boys toured the battlefields of the American Civil War in 1976.
In A
Friendship, Morris remembered their visit to Antietam, were in one day in 1862, 23,000 men and boys were killed and wounded.
From James Jones: A
friendship
James: "One of the things most people do not understand is the physical hardship a solder goes threw even when he's not being
shot at. If we had been living then and been here, we'd probably fought against each other."
Jim: "Yeah, I guess that true."
Working their way threw Nicodemus Hill the fog and
rain the day waned on. Down the Smoketown Lane and past the Roulette Farmhouse to Sunken lane. Now know as Bloody Lane. It was here along a line of a thousand yards that the Confederate center took it's stand. Thousands of them firing at close quarters against Federal troops across the crests ridge. The battle lasting three hrs. As far as the eye could see, body's lay strewn in piles across the whole ridge.
Jim: "They way men go to
die. (looking down the ridge) It's incredibly
sad. It breaks my heart. You wounder why it is necessary, why human beings have to do that to each other. This reminds me a little of Europe, where every blade of
grass has twenty-one drops of human
blood on it. That's why Europe is so goddamned
green."
Two Boys: Why do men do it? Why did they do it here?
James: Well..." he paused, to the sound of
rain on the roof. "I think it's more because they didn't want to appear unmanly in front of their friends."
