I think it's important to know this story is a factionalized exploration of a gap in a true story. I wish I had known that from the get go. Perhaps then I would have thought nicer things of Willie, who I kept berating for inviting war into his life (war is not a game; it is not something to be wished after like a boy wishes after a set of tin soldiers. In war, those lovely tin soldiers have mothers and children and hobbies and pets and those tin soldiers die in lonesome terrifying ways.) I can't decide if the portrayal of women was extremely modern and not sexist or if it was standard. I'm a very poor example of a feminist so I have to think about these things.