natasha

“— of all these and the others, dear Father, forgive us for that awful cloud.”
― Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

“As I looked at the stains on the coral, I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen about how "gallant" it is for a man to "shed his blood for his country," and "to give his life's blood as a sacrifice," and so on. The words seemed ridiculous. Only the flies benefited.”
― Eugene B. Sledge

“Everything and all the world became my enemy, and soon my very body betrayed me and became my foe. My leg became a creeping Japanese, and then the other leg. My arms, too, and then my head.
My heart was alone. It was me. I was my heart.
It lay quivering, I lay quivering, in that rotten hole while the darkness gathered and all creation conspired for my heart.
How long? I lay for an eternity. There was no time. Time had disintegrated in that black void. There was only emptiness, and that is Something; there was only being; there was only consciousness.
Like the light that comes up suddenly in a darkened theatre, daylight came quickly. Dawn came, and so myself came back to myself. I could see the pale outlines of my comrades to right and left, and I marvelled to see how tame the tree could be, how unforbidding could be its branches.
I know now why men light fires”
― Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

“I carry within me, inscribed in the very cells of my body, the memory of an experience of danger so violent that sometimes I think I really lived it myself, or that I'll be forced to relive it one day.”
― Anne Berest, The Postcard