SOLDIER'S SACRIFICE

Hutt News, Volume 19, Issue 9, 1 August 1945, Page 9

SOLDIER'S SACRIFICE

WHAT HE MUST GIVE WARFARE'S DAILY ORDEAL Nothing a civilian ean do at home for the war compares in any way with what a soldier has to give out of himself. For a civilian has a lioine to go to every night, where he enjoys a little privacy or has some time to himself, writes Brook's Atkinson in the New York Times. He" has time off that he can use as he pleases. He has never had to surrender his identity as an individual. In his wartime life there is a large measure of choice of friends, food and amusement. Since the nature of war is not only dangerous, but destructive, a soldier also lives in an atmospnere ol' varying degrees of frightfulness, al-' | ternating with boredom. He must always be at the peak of his form in a cruel competition of death. In the field lie lives like a hounded animal, in misery without civilised comforts—everything impromptu and temporary. Since lie sees comrades dying and knows that he may die himself, he has to give himself to war without reservation in self-de-fence. He is absorbed in it. If he had to live this way in his own county, he would at least be fighting for something he could see. His feet would be on ground he loves. But even if he is a good internationalist, which is highly unlikely, he can hardly understand in his bones why he is pitting his life against the enemy of a country that does not warm his heart as his own doss. Homesickness lies at the heart of all his dissatisfactions. No wonder he suspects that no one at home understands what he is. giving his country. No one does.