Of a trained, professional infantryman. But this guy was no infantryman. And he had hung around the troopies a little and picked up some lingo and let a couple days' beard grow and heard a couple of rounds pop. Maybe he had even seen a dead man. What he had not seen was Combat.
War is a profession.
It's not a game. But it is no game, and brutality is not enough. He lives in mud and shit, constantly sick, always exhausted, hungry, sleepless, and he grows more and more distant from those who were his family and friends and classmates as he gets more and more competent at this new trade. Nor does he have the privilege simply to suffer and die like, say, the infinitely more fortunate who are merely starving to death. It is a world of absolutes and final decisions and monotony and reluctance.