What Every Person Should Know About War

What Every Person Should Know About War

Acclaimed <I>New York Times</I> journalist and author Chris Hedges offers a critical -- and fascinating -- lesson in the dangerous realities of our age: a stark look at the effects of war on combatants. Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U.S. military documentation of the brutalizing physical and psychological consequences of combat to speak for itself. <BR><BR> Hedges poses dozens of questions that young soldiers might ask about combat, and then answers them by quoting from medical and psychological studies. <BR> • What are my chances of being wounded or killed if we go to war? <BR> • What does it feel like to get shot? <BR> • What do artillery shells do to you? <BR> • What is the most painful way to get wounded? <BR> • Will I be afraid? <BR> • What could happen to me in a nuclear attack? <BR> • What does it feel like to kill someone? <BR> • Can I withstand torture? <BR> • What are the long-term consequences of combat stress? <BR> • What will happen to my body after I die? <BR><BR> This profound and devastating portrayal of the horrors to which we subject our armed forces stands as a ringing indictment of the glorification of war and the concealment of its barbarity.