On War, Guilt and 'Thank You for Your Service'

Summary

---

Samet is a professor of English at the U.S. Military Academy and the author of "Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point."

Watch a 1940s or 1950s movie set in New York City -- noir, comedy or melodrama -- and you are sure to spot him: straphanging on a crowded subway car, buying a newspaper at a kiosk or sitting in a coffee shop. The anonymous man in uniform is a stock extra in these films, as elemental to the urban landscape as the beat cop, the woman with the baby carriage or the couple in love.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

On War, Guilt and 'Thank You for Your Service'

But today, a woman or man in military uniform dining in a restaurant, sitting on a bench in Central Park or walking up Broadway constitutes a spectacle. I have witnessed this firsthand whenever one of my military colleagues and I have taken West Point cadets to the city to attend a performance or to visit a ...

See the full content of this document

---