Sunday, April 23, 2006
Thought of the Day
Anyone who fought in Vietnam, if he is honest about himself, will have to admit he enjoyed the compelling attractiveness of combat. It was a peculiar enjoyment because it was mixed with a commensurate pain, Under fire, a man's power of life heightened in proportion to the proximity of death so that he felt an elation as extreme as his dread. His senses quickened, he attained an acuity of consciousness at once pleasurable and excruciating. It was something like the elevated state of awareness induced by drugs. And it could be just as addictive, for it made whatever else life offered in the way of delights or torments seem pedestrian.
Philip Caputo in A Rumor of War
Philip Caputo in A Rumor of War