Mother, whose heart hung humble as a button the bright splendid shroud of your son, Do not weep. War is kind. - Stephen Crane

He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man.

I WALKED IN A DESERT.
AND I CRIED,
'AH, GOD, TAKE ME FROM THIS PLACE!'
A VOICE SAID, 'IT IS NO DESERT.'
I CRIED, 'WELL, BUT — THE SAND, THE HEAT, THE VACANT HORIZON.'
A VOICE SAID, 'IT IS NO DESERT.

"The youth had resolved not to budge whatever should happen. Some arrows of scorn that had buried themselves in his heart had generated strange and unspeakable hatred. It was clear to him that his final and absolute revenge was to be achieved by his dead body lying, torn and gluttering, upon the field. This was to be a poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said "mule drivers," and later "mud diggers," for in all the wild graspings of his mind for a unit responsible for his sufferings and commotions he always seized upon the man who had dubbed him wrongly. And it was his idea, vaguely formulated, that his corpse would be for those eyes a great and salt reproach."