War is Complex

War is complex
To generalize war is like generalizing about peace
War is hell, but that's not the half of it
It does not instruct
Nor encourage virtue
Nor restrain men from doing
Things men have always done
It's about sunlight

War is numbing
The marched for the sake of the march
They plodded along slowly
Unthinking, all blood and bone
They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery
They carried lice and ringworm and leeches
They shared to weight of memory
Often, they carried each other
The wounded or the weak

War is something you can't explain
Vietnam was full of strange stories
Some well beyond that
But the stories that will last forever
Are those that swirl back and forth across
The border between trivia and bedlam
The mad and the mundane
You don't believe it?
Fine with me
But you don't know human nature
You don't know Nam