Wartime

I read with interest Roger J. Spiller’s interview with Paul Fussell in the November 1989 issue (“The Real War“). If Fussell’s book Wartime can move a person to become a conscientious objector, it is indeed a powerful portrait of war, and Dr. Spiller’s Command and General Staff College course on “Men in Battle” is similarly valuable in its belief that an understanding of “wartime” will make for a better leader. Real war isn’t learned in the classroom. Nor would anyone argue that it could ever be completely described in a book. But the efforts of these scholars have briefly lifted the veil that descends over the battlefield during peacetime. And that is a view that every leader must be prepared to see for himself.