The following is from the book: Helmet for My Pillow: from Parris Island to the Pacific, Robert Leckie.
It is not always or immediately saddening to hear “who got it.” Except for one’s close buddies, it is difficult to feel deep, wracking grief for the dead, and now, hearing the lieutenant tolling off the names, I had to force my face into a mask of mourning, deliberately adorn my heart with black, as it were, for I was shocked to gaze inward and see no sorrow there. Rather than permit myself to know myself a monster (as I seemed, then) I deliberately deluded myself by feigning bereavement. So did we all.
About 20 years after Robert's experience, I, upon the combat loss of comrades, thought myself to be psychologically defective when I felt much the same following combat losses over the longest five years. Others, with whom I spoke about this feeling agreed that they, in wonder, felt the same. When the task was mine to write condolence letters I felt, guiltily, that I was just making up the proper words and phrases. I didn't really feel them. I consoled myself with the thought that there would be a time for morning. And I have now lived long enough to realize that truth. I don't remember most of their names, but I see them and their deaths or ghastly wounds vividly many-a-night in nightmares. I don't dream about successes or victories, but the events that resulted in horror.
