My great uncle fought in WWI. His stories fascinated me.
When the war (WWI) finally ended it was necessary for both sides to maintain, indeed even to inflate, the myth of sacrifice so that the whole affair would not be seen for what it was: a meaningless waste of millions of lives. Logically, if the flower of youth had been cut down in Flanders, the survivors were not the flower: the dead were superior to the traumatized living. In this way, the virtual destruction of a generation further increased the distance between the old and the young, between the official and the unofficial.
in this great war [WWI]. . . they had, all of them, on all sides, lost their freedom. The freedom to think hopefully of the future.
I am now working on the second WWI story and find the challenge marvelous.
. . . Senate Doc. # 259. The 65th congress(:). . . The coal companies made between 100% and 7,856% on their capital stock during the war (to end all wars, WWI). . . . The leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of saddles for the calvary. But there wasn't any calvary overseas!