Status Updates From Over There

As fascinating and at times riveting this has been, I am ready for the story to finish so I can begin to recover from shell-shock.

It was Malvern Hill and Gettysburg all over again. How could any American commander commit this bestiality?

The major shrugged. Hospitals were not his department. Hevwas absorbed in shooting Frenchmen to make them fight.

All three divisions are probably full of green kids like these. The veterans are dead in Picardy.

The Germans are demonstrating the mastery of the art of warfare. You have demonstrated the art of bullshit.

This ambulance driving in a war zone is some scary stuff.

There were at least a thousand men. A whole battalion annihilated by German gas.

I do believe I'm developing a crush on Patton.

Bliss soon saw the French were right about the uselessness of the rifle in a trench fight.

Polly, you're going to find yourself in a big pile of poo. These are serious radicals.

No one can believe your good fortune, mademoiselle. We counted thirty-eight shrapnel holes in your uniform.

Bliss had learned from his travels around France that all the young men were either in uniform or in the cemetery.

The only way to topple them is to deny them men. As long as he's [Haig] got men he'll attack-attack-attack and the slaughter will go on.

It was the France of the war, this daily unrelenting agony that had been uprooting all other unrealities for three years while Americans sat home and read lies in their newspapers.

Time past and time future dissolve. There is only the present, this dim candle-lit nightmare, the cries of men in agony.

First Gen. John J Persing, now Lt. George S Patton Jr. has entered the story.

Setting sail for France. I think this is going to be a keeper. It survived a hellacious work week, capped off with a hellacious Friday afternoon without flying last night. Yay.

Now repeat after me.

This is my weapon,

this is my gun;

This is for shooting,

This is for fun.

=-O