이것이 전쟁이다! Ⅱ. In Explanation l 15 Ⅱ. In Explanation TO YOU who open this book something of an explanation is due, for you are helping me to tell a story as one has never been told before. Without you, and the innumerable bits of memories and experiences and fears which are only You yet which make you much like all the men and women who surround you each day—without you my book would be impossible. For You are deeply involved in this story, You are the Main Character. You are the one who survived—the one who lived to stand outside a crude aid station in the valley while awaiting word whether your comrades were still alive . . . or dead. You are the one who lived to sprawl loosely upon a city street while eating your can of beans. You are the one who didn’t get hit, or freeze, or just disappear into the swirl of blinding snow when you and your comrades were surrounded by enemy troops in vastly superior force, then driven to the point of final exhaustion while marching out of the trap. 「This Is War!」 is a book which happens to have been made possible by the war in Korea. It is in no way a report on the progress of that war, nor does it make any pretense of telling the reasons behind the United Nations’ decision to intervene and try to stop the Communist invasion by force. There is neither climax nor ringing conclusion to this book. It is simply an effort to show something of what a man endures when his country decides to go to war, with or without his personal agreement on the righteousness of the cause. This book is an effort to completely divorce the word “war” as flung dramatically down off the highest benches of every land, from the look in the man’s eyes who is taking his last puff on perhaps his last cigarette, perhaps forever, before he grabs his rifle, his guts and his dreams—and attacks an enemy position above him. Believing that the look in that man’s eyes tells more clearly what he felt, I am presenting this book to you without a single caption, for any caption that I might write would just mirror when I was feeling, or thought I felt. To sit down now
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