Status Updates From Something to Die For

...Mad Dog knew that fighting men drift naturally and immediately from politics once a battle is joined. Politics became irrelevant when someone was trying to kill you. You thought of getting the job done, and you weighed the personal loyalties of those around you.

Roland seemed a metaphor to Holcomb, a symbol. The chairman's obsessive self-importance, hislack of bodily discipline, and his celebration of authority over intellect were also, in Holcomb's view, the dominant characteristics of the Congress itself.