TIME AT WAR

So now I set about fitting into the training programme of my platoon some of the stalking and catch-me-if-you-can games that I had played with Raleigh Trevelyan’s platoon at Ranby—for did not war seem to be a horribly over-the-top version of a children’s game? (56)

It was all quite like, yes, an apotheosis of a mad apocalyptic children’s game. (124)

—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley.

Two days ago, I completed Time at War by Nicholas Mosley. This was a Christmas gift from the mother-in-law.

Time at War is a memoir of Mosley's experiences in the Second World War. What I liked about the book is Mosley's deflation of his younger self. He challenges his youthful arrogance from the standpoint of a man at the end of life, but also shows how he was challenging many of his assumptions and values even as a young man. He is snivelling and brash and spoiled. He is warm and compassionate and warm-hearted. He revels in the friendships of his fellow students and officers. He wonders about their "playing" at homosexuality, which, for most of them, is left behind once the brutality and horror of war rears its ugly head. He finds fulfillment in war, even as he protests it. He faces the failure of being captured, the thrill of escape, and the redemption of being allowed to "repent" of his failure through the success of leading his platoon into battle. Mosley is contradiction squared. He is human. This humanity and confusion and self-effacement and reevaluation makes him rather endearing.

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Every minute I have to give to this war I grudge angrily. And when things are dangerously active I go about my business in a spirit of complete misery.
—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley, page 143

I was talking with a soldier and his wife on Sunday. He is about to be redeployed at a moment's notice to Iraq, as soon as President George W. Bush decides how many troops he wants to increase our current numbers with. His platoon could leave in a few weeks. It could leave tonight. He doesn't know. But, he does know that he is afraid and mad and wants American involvement in the war to come to conclusion. The insecurity and anxiety is gnawing at him. His fear and worry were visible upon his face and that of his wife. He looked sick and pissed off.

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One could begin to see how the simplicities of war might be easier to deal with than the complexities of peace.
—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley, page 160

Which is how President Bush was reelected. It was simpler to keep him in office and slog through the nightmare we have helped to create than to roll up our sleeves, put someone else into office, and do the real work of diplomacy, withdrawal, coalition building.

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Humans seem at home in war: they do not feel at home in peace. This cannot often enough be said.
—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley, page 161

May God have mercy upon us!

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As soon as I completed Time at War, I immediately began What is the What by Dave Eggers. What is the What is a fictionalized account of the life of Valentino Achak Deng. Deng survived the civil war of Sudan in the early 1980s and his subsequent trek to find shelter in refugee camps in western Ethiopia and northern Kenya.

This is another attempt of an individual to wrap his mind around the concept of war. Only this time the individual is not in his early twenties when he first experiences war, but six years old. I am only 85 pages into the novel at this point, but young Deng has seen his village of Marial Bai destroyed, had his family split up, seen bodies scattered about, and seen and heard fellow boys attacked by lions in the scrub as they flee. He has also been victimized in the United States as a young adult refugee due to his African heritage. His tale is being told to us while he is tied up on the floor of his own apartment after being robbed.

We really are filthy beasts, all of us...