No Real Soldiers

When WWII is almost over, Billy and Edgar meet a woman at Dresden who wants to help the Americans. She speaks with them for a while, but among the things she tells them is that “All real soldiers are dead”. It was almost the end of the war when Dresden was bombed, and what she said was true. Even though Billy had been “prepared” to be a soldier, he was no real soldier. Actually, I don’t think most of the “soldiers” in the war were real soldiers. They were still kids, and I remember in the first chapter, when Mary O’Hare reacts so badly after she’s told about the war book. “You were just babies back then!” (p14). I think that is one of the saddest things about war. Kids pay for the mistake that politicians make when they get a country in war, and young people die because of this.