"Less than half an hour before, Colbert had been talking about stress reactions in combat. In addition to the embarrassing loss of bodily control that 25 percent of all soldiers experience, other symptoms include time dilation, a sense of time slowing down or speeding up; vividness, a starkly heighte"
"Fick pokeshis head in the window, grinning. “Present for you.” He passes in a small water bottle, filled with about two inches of amber fluid. “LSA,” he says. “I scammed it off some guys in RCT-1.” “Sir, not to get homoerotic about this,” Colbert says. “But I couldkiss you.”"
"Recon Marines like Colbert are in their hearts almost like bird-watchers. They have a passion for observing things that exists all by itself, separate from whatever thrills they get out of guns and blowing things up. They seem truly happy whenever a chance comes to puzzle out the nature of small (bu"
"“Many of them have sought my counsel because they feel guilty,”he tells me. “But when I ask them why, they say they feel bad because they haven’t had a chance to fire their weapons. They worry that they haven’t done their jobs as Marines. I’ve had to counsel them that if you don’t have to shoot some"
"I find his self-awareness unsettling. One of the few comforts I havewhen looking at images of distant suffering is the hope that the starving child with flies on his face doesn’t know how pathetic he is. If all he knows is misery, maybe his suffering isn’t as bad. But this farmer has shattered that "
"When Garza takes the watch on the Humvee’s Mark-19, Colbert tells him, “Garza, please make sure you don’t shoot the civilians on the other side of the canal. We are the invading army. We must be magnanimous.” “Magna-nous?” Garza asks. “What the fuck does that mean?” “Lofty and kinglike,” Colbert tel"