the fires are not urgent. They move at a crawl, and the gray smoke drifts lazily into the cloudless sky, and I can’t imagine that anyone is hurt. The… - Hugh Howey

I also remember catching the eye of the few conscientious objectors in the terminal, the people opposed to the war but afraid to speak up. There was no hate in their eyes, only pity. Sadness. Knowledge that I might be necessary, but that we shouldn’t be proud that I was necessary. That’s how I saw myself and my company by the end of my second tour. I didn’t hate what we did so much as hate the need for it all. No one should applaud this. We should bow our heads not in thanks but in sadness.

Juliette felt a wash of fear and relief, those two opposites twisting together like staircase and rail.

He was a good man, but he had a broken heart. That’ll take even the best of them down.