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- 3519
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:41:20.744Z
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- 3498
- text
- practically a child at the time, but I remember when he used to come home on furlough
and all, all he did was lie on his bed, practically. He hardly ever even came in the living
room. Later, when he went overseas and was in the war and all, he didn't get wounded or
anything and he didn't have to shoot anybody. All he had to do was drive some cowboy
general around all day in a command car. He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to
shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was
practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were. I remember Allie once asked him wasn't
it sort of good that he was in the war because he was a writer and it gave him a lot to
write about and all. He made Allie go get his baseball mitt and then he asked him who
was the best war poet, Rupert Brooke or Emily Dickinson. Allie said Emily Dickinson. I
don't know too much about it myself, because I don't read much poetry, but I do know it'd
drive me crazy if I had to be in the Army and be with a bunch of guys like Ackley and
Stradlater and old Maurice all the time, marching with them and all. I was in the Boy
Scouts once, for about a week, and I couldn't even stand looking at the back of the guy's
neck in front of me. They kept telling you to look at the back of the guy's neck in front of
you. I swear if there's ever another war, they better just take me out and stick me in front
of a firing squad. I wouldn't object. What gets me about D.B., though, he hated the war so
much, and yet he got me to read this book A Farewell to Arms last summer. He said it
was so terrific. That's what I can't understand. It had this guy in it named Lieutenant
Henry that was supposed to be a nice guy and all. I don't see how D.B. could hate the
Army and war and all so much and still like a phony like that. I mean, for instance, I don't
- title
- Chunk 4