removed my fantasies of going to war
made real certain aspects of war which seemed to have been stuck in kind of cultural memory but not elaborated on

one of the most real books i've read, both for love and for fear/terror

kind of suffered some amnesia in reading the second half as I missed pieces of how he ended up in this or that village, or where the tanks came from, or whatever, but this seemed appropriate

not enjoyable, but very glad I read this