Reading Mr. Culbreath's comments about fatherhood and war (here) this morning, I was immediately reminded of this line I had just read last night in "Diary of a Country Priest". (The speaker is a soldier, and he is talking about the demise of Christianity or Christendom (the Christian nation, let's say) because of the demise of 'the Christian soldier'):
The cleverist of killers of tomorrow will kill without any risk. Thirty thousand feet above the earth, and dirty little engineer, sitting cosily in his slippers with a special bodyguard of technicians, will merely have to press a button to wipe out a town, and scurry home in fear-his only fear-of being late for dinner. Nobody can could call an employee of that description a soldier.
I finished reading "Diary" early this morning. As I wrote a few days ago, I don't know how I missed the power of this book the first I read it some 20 years ago. Perhaps I was not mature enough.
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