Lone Soldier Quotes

I feel profoundly alone, cut off, unattractive…I feel unloveable. But I respect that unloveable solider—struggling to survive, struggling to be honest, just, honourable. I respect myself.

Pride is a lonely soldier, seeing out his watch when there’s no one else there to care.

Kaladin screamed, reaching the end of the bridge. Finding a tiny surge of strength somewhere, he raised his spear and threw himself off the end of the wooden platform, launching into the air above the cavernous void. Bridgemen cried out in dismay. Syl zipped about him with worry. Parshendi looked up with amazement as a lone bridgeman sailed through the air toward them. His drained, worn-out body barely had any strength left. In that moment of crystallized time, he looked down on his enemies. Parshendi with their marbled red and black skin. Soldiers raising finely crafted weapons, as if to cut him from the sky. Strangers, oddities in carapace breastplates and skullcaps. Many of them wearing beards. Beards woven with glowing gemstones. Kaladin breathed in. Like the power of salvation itself—like rays of sunlight from the eyes of the Almighty—Stormlight exploded from those gemstones. It streamed through the air, pulled in visible streams, like glowing columns of luminescent smoke. Twisting and turning and spiraling like tiny funnel clouds until they slammed into him. And the storm came to life again.

There was only the broad square with the scattered dim moons of the street lamps and with the monumental stone arch which receded into the mist as though it would prop up the melancholy sky and protect beneath itself the faint lonely flame on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which looked like the last grave of mankind in the midst of night and loneliness.

Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. No, no, wait. Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a wee house in the woods. Once upon a time there were three soldiers, tramping together down the road after the war. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Once upon a time there were three brothers. No, this is it. This is the variation I want. Once upon a time there were three Beautiful children, two boys and a girl. When each baby was born, the parents rejoiced, the heavens rejoiced, even the fairies rejoiced. The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch. This which was the same age as the beautiful children, and as she and they grew, she was jealous of the girl, and jealous of the boys, too. They were blessed with all these fairy gifts, gifts the witch had been denied at her own christening. The eldest boy was strong and fast, capable and handsome. Though it's true, he was exceptionally short. The next boy was studious and open hearted. Though it's true, he was an outsider. And the girl was witty, Generous, and ethical. Though it's true, she felt powerless. The witch, she was none of these things, for her parents had angered the fairies. No gifts were ever bestowed upon her. She was lonely. Her only strength was her dark and ugly magic. She confuse being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them. She confuse being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it. She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts are making them think. Hey magic was all she had, and she used it to destroy what she most admired. She visited each young person in turn in their tenth birthday, but did not harm them out right. The protection of some kind fairy - the lilac fairy, perhaps - prevented her from doing so. What she did instead was cursed them. "When you are sixteen," proclaimed the witch in a rage of jealousy, "you shall prick your finger on a spindle - no, you shall strike a match - yes, you will strike a match and did in its flame." The parents of the beautiful children were frightened of the curse, and tried, as people will do, to avoid it. They moved themselves and the children far away, to a castle on a windswept Island. A castle where there were no matches. There, surely, they would be safe. There, Surely, the witch would never find them. But find them she did. And when they were fifteen, these beautiful children, just before their sixteenth birthdays and when they're nervous parents not yet expecting it, the jealous which toxic, hateful self into their lives in the shape of a blonde meeting. The maiden befriended the beautiful children. She kissed him and took them on the boat rides and brought them fudge and told them stories. Then she gave them a box of matches. The children were entranced, for nearly sixteen they have never seen fire. Go on, strike, said the witch, smiling. Fire is beautiful. Nothing bad will happen. Go on, she said, the flames will cleanse your souls. Go on, she said, for you are independent thinkers. Go on, she said. What is this life we lead, if you did not take action? And they listened. They took the matches from her and they struck them. The witch watched their beauty burn, Their bounce, Their intelligence, Their wit, Their open hearts, Their charm, Their dreams for the future. She watched it all disappear in smoke.

Here’s the thing about baseball-it’s not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that. Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter’s box like a soldier and it’s up to him-and him alone-what happens next. But here’s the thing I didn’t understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run… Someone else has to pitch the ball.

Maria, lonely prostitute on a street of pain, You, at least, hail me and speak to me While a thousand others ignore my face. You offer me an hour of love, And your fees are not as costly as most. You are the madonna of the lonely, The first-born daughter in a world of pain. You do not turn fat men aside, Or trample on the stuttering, shy ones, You are the meadow where desperate men Can find a moment's comfort. Men have paid more to their wives To know a bit of peace And could not walk away without the guilt That masquerades as love. You do not bind them, lovely Maria, you comfort them And bid them return. Your body is more Christian than the Bishop's Whose gloved hand cannot feel the dropping of my blood. Your passion is as genuine as most, Your caring as real! But you, Maria, sacred whore on the endless pavement of pain, You, whose virginity each man may make his own Without paying ought but your fee, You who know nothing of virgin births and immaculate conceptions, You who touch man's flesh and caress a stranger, Who warm his bed to bring his aching skin alive, You make more sense than stock markets and football games Where sad men beg for virility. You offer yourself for a fee--and who offers himself for less? At times you are cruel and demanding--harsh and insensitive, At times you are shrewd and deceptive--grasping and hollow. The wonder is that at times you are gentle and concerned, Warm and loving. You deserve more respect than nuns who hide their sex for eternal love; Your fees are not so high, nor your prejudice so virtuous. You deserve more laurels than the self-pitying mother of many children, And your fee is not as costly as most. Man comes to you when his bed is filled with brass and emptiness, When liquor has dulled his sense enough To know his need of you. He will come in fantasy and despair, Maria, And leave without apologies. He will come in loneliness--and perhaps Leave in loneliness as well. But you give him more than soldiers who win medals and pensions, More than priests who offer absolution And sweet-smelling ritual, More than friends who anticipate his death Or challenge his life, And your fee is not as costly as most. You admit that your love is for a fee, Few women can be as honest. There are monuments to statesmen who gave nothing to anyone Except their hungry ego, Monuments to mothers who turned their children Into starving, anxious bodies, Monuments to Lady Liberty who makes poor men prisoners. I would erect a monument for you-- who give more than most-- And for a meager fee. Among the lonely, you are perhaps the loneliest of all, You come so close to love But it eludes you While proper women march to church and fantasize In the silence of their rooms, While lonely women take their husbands' arms To hold them on life's surface, While chattering women fill their closets with clothes and Their lips with lies, You offer love for a fee--which is not as costly as most-- And remain a lonely prostitute on a street of pain. You are not immoral, little Maria, only tired and afraid, But you are not as hollow as the police who pursue you, The politicians who jail you, the pharisees who scorn you. You give what you promise--take your paltry fee--and Wander on the endless, aching pavements of pain. You know more of universal love than the nations who thrive on war, More than the churches whose dogmas are private vendettas made sacred, More than the tall buildings and sprawling factories Where men wear chains. You are a lonely prostitute who speaks to me as I pass, And I smile at you because I am a lonely man.

Rhen leans closer to me. "Have mercy, my lady. I know your soldiers are said to enjoy tearing men limb from limb, but----" "Goodness," Evalyn gasps. "The Secret Service sounds positively vicious.

...these are the problems of the modern U.S. combat soldier, the constant worry about overstepping the mark and an American media that delights in trying to knock us down. Which we have done nothing to deserve. Except, perhaps, love our country and everything it stands for.

Dear Beloved woman, Time… so much time has passed since my love wrote his last words for me. And yet I remember it as if it were yesterday. I remember writing back and for the first time since I had left home I told my love what kind of darkness surrounded me here. I forgot all the sweet things my father had said to my mother when he was away. I forgot how they got her through all those long and lonely nights.

You don’t know LONELY till you’re in a war zone and cut off from everything and everyone you know and love.

This land, like so much of the French countryside, was a painting, but Mercier felt his heart touched with melancholy and realized, not for the first time, that beautiful places were hard on lonely people.

Shouldn't I stay? Soldier through it? Maybe if I'd had some practice, maybe if I'd had more devastation in my life, I would be more prepared to go on. It's not that my life has been perfect. I've had disappointments and I've been lonely and frustrated and angry and all the crappy stuff everyone feels.

In him, too, was despair from the sorrow that soldiers turn to hatred in order that they may continue to be soldiers. Now it was over he was lonely, detached and unelated and he hated every one he saw.

Graff had isolated Ender to make him struggle. To make him prove, not that he was competent, but that he was far better than everyone else. That was the only way he could win respect and friendship. It made him a better soldier then he would ever have been otherwise. It also made him lonely, afraid, angry, untrusting. And maybe those traits, too, made him a better soldier.

Some of America's highest profile assassins – including the likes of John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman and Robert Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan – claimed they were CIA-programmed killers hypnotized by MK-Ultra. The media portrayed them as crazed lone gunmen, so naturally the public paid little attention to their claims. Kentbridge, however, knew it was possible some of these men were mind controlled soldiers, or Manchurian Candidates, carrying out assassination orders their conscious minds were not even aware of.

It is hard to determine what is most disturbing about this book—the devious and immoral tactics used by leaders and recruiters to get women to join the military, the terrible poverty and personal violence women were escaping that lead them to be vulnerable to such manipulation, the raping and harassing of women soldiers by their superiors and comrades once they got to Iraq, or the untreated homelessness, illnesses and madness that have haunted women since they came home. The Lonely Soldier is an important book, a crucial accounting of the shameful war on women who gave their bodies, lives and souls for their country.

Women have become trained to be lone soldiers online, knowing that to send up a signal flare for help is more likely to attract enemies than allies.

Lying half-asleep in his embrace, I looked up and saw on his face the same expression I saw on countless lonely faces every day. It was the homesick look of the children who were lost in the chaos of warfare, witnessing death and disaster, longing for a meaningful touch.

She might get lonely at times. But that was to be expected. The only way to stop those feelings was to live a life devoted to others. That was her true purpose in life. She was a mere background character in other people's lives.

This woman. Will we see her recorded as a brave soldier in their war? Or will she risk being forgotten? We can do our part. We can remember her. History is simple, but the past is complicated. I, for one, embrace the complications.

The anger and the emptiness and the hate that had come with the let-down after the bridge, when he had looked up from where he had lain and crouching, seen Anselmo dead, were still all through him. In him, too, was despair from the sorrow that soldiers turn to hatred in order that they may continue to be soldiers. Now it was over he was lonely, detached and unrelated and he hated every one he saw.

Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in time with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to the right or to the left. He would do as the others did.

The dead are lonelier than the living ever can be. They can't hear each other through coffins and the earth....When I die I'd like to be buried in a mass grave. In a mass grave I wouldn't be afraid of the dark, and I'd be lonely only because my grandson will be missing me, the way I miss Grandpa Slavko now.

It also made him lonely, afraid, angry, untrusting. And maybe those traits, too, made him a better soldier.

It made him a better soldier than he would ever have been otherwise. It also made him lonely, afraid, angry, untrusting. And maybe those traits, too, made him a better soldier.

The driving aesthetic of military style is uniformity. Whence the word uniform. From first inspection to Arlington National Cemetery, soldiers look like those around them: same hat, same boots, identical white grave marker. They are discouraged from looking unique, because that would encourage them to feel unique, to feel like an individual. The problem with individuals is that they think for themselves and of themselves, rather than for and of their unit. They’re the lone goldfish on the old Pepperidge Farm bags, swimming the other way. They’re a problem.

As ants, so soldiers. In the years to come he was to see the process at work again and again, sometimes in grim circumstances, sometimes in pleasant domesticity. Men unnaturally removed from wives and family began at once to build substitute homes, to paint and furnish, to make flower-beds and edge them with white-washed pebbles, to stitch cushion-covers on lonely gun-sites.

Like Apollinaire, my son was wounded on a dark and lonely battlefield that I have never seen, and he has arrived with his head in bandages. I'll have to bury him like a soldier who died at war. Bird continued to cry.

He cannot do anything deliberate now. The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up, displaces thought, as much for him as it has for everyone else who has ever been stuck to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. And yet he goes on taking in. It is not what he does, it is what he is. He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own. This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act, each dripping memory, as if it were something precious, as if it were itself the loved child tottering homeward on the road. But there is so much of it. So many injured children; so many locked rooms; so much lonely anger; so many bombs in public places; so much vicious zeal; so many bored teenagers at roadblocks; so many drunk girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many jokes that go too far; so much ruining greed; so much sick ingenuity; so much burned skin. The world he claims, claims him. It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks him round and drags him down… All day long, the next day, the city is quiet. The air above the city lacks the usual thousand little trails of smoke from cookfires. Hymns rise from the temple. Families are indoors. The soldiers are back in barracks. The Chief Priest grows hoarse with singing. The governor plays chess with his secretary and dictates letters. The free bread the temple distributed to the poor has gone stale by midday, but tastes all right dipped in water or broth. Death has interrupted life only as much as it ever does. We die one at a time and disappear, but the life of the living continues. The earth turns. The sun makes its way towards the western horizon no slower or faster than it usually does. Early Sunday morning, one of the friends comes back with rags and a jug of water and a box of the grave spices that are supposed to cut down on the smell. She’s braced for the task. But when she comes to the grave she finds that the linen’s been thrown into the corner and the body is gone. Evidently anonymous burial isn’t quite anonymous enough, after all. She sits outside in the sun. The insects have woken up, here at the edge of the desert, and a bee is nosing about in a lily like silk thinly tucked over itself, but much more perishable. It won’t last long. She takes no notice of the feet that appear at the edge of her vision. That’s enough now, she thinks. That’s more than enough. Don’t be afraid, says Yeshua. Far more can be mended than you know. She is weeping. The executee helps her to stand up.

For Bulgakov, however, the greatest underlying source of unease, amounting at times to despair, was something less tangible though very real to him, since it occurs as an ever-present refrain throughout these stories. This was the sense of being a lone soldier of reason and enlightenment pitted against the vast, dark, ocean-like mass of peasant ignorance and superstition... [in] the fearsome, pre-literate, mediaeval world of the peasantry

But why was he born to be a sort of lonely buffalo: outside the herd? Not artist: not soldier: not bureaucrat: not certainly indispensable anywhere: apparently not even sound in the eyes of these dim-minded specialists… An exact observer…

Many people, particularly children, have had poison ivy very often, very badly. They speak of it. They do not forget it. But there is an outer limit, a kind that passes any question of degree. Those who have utterly had it instantly recognize each other—like the Jews and homosexuals in Proust. It has no dignity whatever. There are no poison-ivy heroes… There are other such cabals, reverse elites of outer limit, junkies, sufferers from migraines, the truly seasick, soldiers’ fear in wartime, certain cramps.Many people suffer from cramps severely, turn quite silent, green, and shaky. Someone offers them a glass of gin. But there are cramps of an entirely other order, when even hardened doctors—knowing it is not important, only temporary, just a matter of hours—reach for the Demerol and the needle. It must be so in each lonely degrading thing from which one comes back having learned nothing whatever. There are no conclusions to be drawn from it. Lonely people see double entendres everywhere.

The alien’s back feet shuffled it forward as fast as its enemy was running. When they came close, the huge arms slammed together too quickly for Dafyd’s eyes to follow. The lone soldier dropped to their knees, then folded in a way unbroken spines didn’t fold, fell in a way intact rib cages didn’t fall, and slumped to the stone in an undifferentiated lump. The air around the soldier’s body still carried a faint pink mist, which Dafyd realized was atomized blood. Their rifle clattered to the stones.

The ravens play individually, in pairs, or in samll groups; they circle high, dive, fold their wings, and shoot up or down with one or several of their fellows. They chase and frolic, tarry, turn loops; they make croaks, high cries, and rattling sounds. They do anything but fly in formation. They remind you of a bunch of schoolboys wandering down a lonely road, kicking a ball along. The geese fly mechanically, calling unvaryingly and beating their wings at a steady disciplined rhythm like soldiers marching off.

You. Man at the machine and man in the workshop. If tomorrow they tell you you are to make no more water-pipes and saucepans but are to make steel helmets and machine-guns, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Woman at the counter and woman in the office. If tomorrow they tell you you are to fill shells and assemble telescopic sights for snipers' rifles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Research worker in the laboratory. If tomorrow they tell you you are to invent a new death for the old life, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Priest in the pulpit. If tomorrow they tell you you are to bless murder and declare war holy, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Pilot in your aeroplane. If tomorrow they tell you you are to carry bombs over the cities, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Man of the village and man of the town. If tomorrow they come and give you your call-up papers, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Mother in Normandy and mother in the Ukraine, mother in Vancouver and in London, you on the Hwangho and on the Mississippi, you in Naples and Hamburg and Cairo and Oslo - mothers in all parts of the earth, mothers of the world, if tomorrow they tell you you are to bear new soldiers for new battles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! For if you do not say NO - if YOU do not say no - mothers, then: then! In the bustling hazy harbour towns the big ships will fall silent as corpses against the dead deserted quay walls, their once shimmering bodies overgrown with seaweed and barnacles, smelling of graveyards and rotten fish. The trams will lie like senseless glass-eyed cages beside the twisted steel skeleton of wires and track. The sunny juicy vine will rot on decaying hillsides, rice will dry in the withered earth, potatoes will freeze in the unploughed land and cows will stick their death-still legs into the air like overturned chairs. In the fields beside rusted ploughs the corn will be flattened like a beaten army. Then the last human creature, with mangled entrails and infected lungs, will wander around, unanswered and lonely, under the poisonous glowing sun, among the immense mass graves and devastated cities. The last human creature, withered, mad, cursing, accusing - and the terrible accusation: WHY? will die unheard on the plains, drift through the ruins, seep into the rubble of churches, fall into pools of blood, unheard, unanswered, the last animal scream of the last human animal - All this will happen tomorrow, tomorrow, perhaps, perhaps even tonight, perhaps tonight, if - if - You do not say NO.

But these are the problems of the modern U.S. combat soldier, the constant worry about overstepping the mark and an American media that delights in trying to knock us down. Which we have done nothing to deserve. Except, perhaps, love our country and everything it stands for.

I am tired. I am lonely. I have found myself mired in resentment in this new life, become a person I don't wish to be, feeling constant guilt for not feeling constant gratitude for the blessing that is my child. I do feel constant gratitude: I adore my child. But I am tired. I am lonely. I am lost.

It is our wish,” said Caspian, “that our royal visitation to our realm of the Lone Islands should, if possible, be an occasion of joy and not of terror to our loyal subjects. If it were not for that, I should have something to say about the state of your men’s armor and weapons. As it is, you are pardoned. Command a cask of wine to be opened that your men may drink our health. But at noon tomorrow I wish to see them here in this courtyard looking like men-at-arms and not like vagabonds. See to it on pain of our extreme displeasure.” The captain gaped but Bern immediately cried, “Three cheers for the King,” and the soldiers, who had understood about the cask of wine even if they understood nothing else, joined in.

Cooper had a theory about personality. Most people considered personality to be a singular identity. Malleable, sure, but essentially cohesive. But he tended to see people as more of a chorus. Every stage in life added a voice to that chorus. The different iterations of himself—lonely military brat, cocky teenager, faithful soldier, young husband, dedicated father, relentless hunter—they all existed within him.

Shouldn't I stay? Soldier through it? Maybe if I'd had some practice, maybe if I'd had more devastation in my life, I would be more prepared to go on. It's not that my life has been perfect. I've had disappointments and I've been lonely and frustrated and angry and all the crappy stuff everyone feels. But in terms of heartbreak, I've been spared. I've never toughened up enough to handle what I'd have to handle if I were to stay.

In 1917 I went to Russia. I was sent to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war. The reader will know that my efforts did not meet with success. I went to Petrograd from Vladivostok, .One day, on the way through Siberia, the train stopped at some station and the passengers as usual got out, some to fetch water to make tea, some to buy food and others to stretch their legs. A blind soldier was sitting on a bench. Other soldiers sat beside him and more stood behind. There were from twenty to thirty.Their uniforms were torn and stained. The blind soldier, a big vigorous fellow, was quite young. On his cheeks was the soft, pale down of a beard that has never been shaved. I daresay he wasn't eighteen. He had a broad face, with flat, wide features, and on his forehead was a great scar of the wound that had lost him his sight. His closed eyes gave him a strangely vacant look. He began to sing. His voice was strong and sweet. He accompanied himself on an accordion. The train waited and he sang song after song. I could not understand his words, but through his singing, wild and melancholy, I seemed to hear the cry of the oppressed: I felt the lonely steppes and the interminable forests, the flow of the broad Russian rivers and all the toil of the countryside, the ploughing of the land and the reaping of the wild corn, the sighing of the wind in the birch trees, the long months of dark winter; and then the dancing of the women in the villages and the youths bathing in shallow streams on summer evenings; I felt the horror of war, the bitter nights in the trenches, the long marches on muddy roads, the battlefield with its terror and anguish and death. It was horrible and deeply moving. A cap lay at the singer's feet and the passengers filled it full of money; the same emotion had seized them all, of boundless compassion and of vague horror, for there was something in that blind, scarred face that was terrifying; you felt that this was a being apart, sundered from the joy of this enchanting world. He did not seem quite human. The soldiers stood silent and hostile. Their attitude seemed to claim as a right the alms of the travelling herd. There was a disdainful anger on their side and unmeasurable pity on ours; but no glimmering of a sense that there was but one way to compensate that helpless man for all his pain.

Yet every democratic government is reluctant to face the fact. Reservists and citizen-soldiers stand ready, in every free nation, to stand to the colors and die in holocaust, the big war. Reservists and citizen-soldiers remain utterly reluctant to stand and die in anything less. None want to serve on the far frontiers, or to maintain lonely, dangerous vigils on the periphery of Asia. There has been every indication that mass call-ups for cold war moves may result in mass disaffection.

In reality, many people who feel their lives are going nowhere or sliding downhill are actually doing a good job with an unfair mess, trying to do honest work, take care of relatives, and be good friends. They feel like they’re failing life’s trials but, in fact, they’re not, nor have they let low self-esteem drive them into addiction, self-absorption, or bitterness. Indeed, soldiering on when you feel diminished, lonely, and out-competed takes great strengths and is one of life’s ultimate accomplishments.

I’m surprised you let him come.” He sighs and glances my way. “Far be it from me to refuse a request from the ‘Crown Prince of Disi.’ ” His tone is pointed, and I scowl. “You were unconscious! I thought Jamison was going to tell the soldiers to shoot us! What else was I supposed to call him?” He raises an eyebrow. “A servant? A footman?” I open my mouth. Close it. Grey’s not done. “A slave, my lady. A guard.” “But she picked prince,” Jake snaps. “Get over it.” Grey ignores him. “The healer’s concubine?” Jake snorts, but twin spots of pink find his cheeks. “Noah probably would have loved that.

The Prince’s soldiers form a protective wall around you and their dying leader with their shields. Black arrows whistle past your head. The dying Prince looks up into your eyes and says, ‘Kai Lord, you must take a message to my father. The enemy is too strong, we cannot hold him. The King must seek that which is in Durenor or all is lost. Take my horse and ride for the capital. May the luck of the gods ride with you.’ You bid a sad farewell to the Prince, mount his white steed, and head south along the forest path. The battle still rages behind you as the Prince’s men fight off another assault on the bridge.

LIKE LOVE, war’s a bloody mess when it’s happening, and a worse mess when it’s over; but with any distance, you can look back at either and see only the glory, or only the pain. The dusk-obscured truth—somewhere in the middle of all our human messiness—is very difficult to recognize. Honestly, it’s so faint through the dim pewter gloaming; it may not even be there at all, shapeless and formless. Perhaps it’s God, or time, or all things; it’s grace in any case. Some soldiers claim to have seen it through gun smoke; women pushing life into the world might catch a glimpse of it; it’s in the start of everything and in everyone’s end, surely. But to have clarity in the routine of your ordinary life, not at the very end, or in extremis: That’s amazing grace; and you don’t just wake up there either. There’s always a terrible waiting period, a purgatory of doubt, between the suffering and the grace. That’s the lonely alone work, weathering the places in between, and dismantling oneself piece by piece meantime, shredding all that can be shredded, returning to dust all that can be eroded. Amazing grace appears when all faith has fled; when final exhaustion has set in; when there’re no trails to follow and one carries on anyway.

Copeland was crazy. He was a fanatic, so that it was maddening to try to reason with him. Still the terrible anger that they had felt that night had later been hard to understand. Copeland knew. And those who knew were like a handful of naked soldiers before an armed battalion. And what had they done? They had turned to quarrel with each other. Copeland was wrong—yes—he was crazy. But on some points they might be able to work together after all. If they didn’t talk too much. He would go and see him. A sudden urge to hurry came in him. Maybe that would be the best thing after all. Maybe that was the sign, the hand he had so long awaited.

The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna" Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O’er the grave where our hero we buried. We buried him darkly at dead of night, The sods with our bayonets turning; By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light And the lantern dimly burning. No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him, But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow; But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow. We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head, And we far away on the billow! Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him, But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on In the grave where a Briton has laid him. But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But left him alone with his glory.

The man who did the shouting at the P.S.U.C. post down on our right was an artist at the job. Sometimes, instead of shouting revolutionary slogans he simply told the Facists how much better we were being fed than they were. His account of the Government rations was apt to be a little imaginative. 'Buttered toast!' - you could hear his voice echoing across the lonely valley - 'We're just sitting down to buttered toast over here! Lovely slices of buttered toast!' I do not doubt that, like the rest of us, he had not seen butter for weeks or months past, but in the icy night the news of buttered toast probably set many a fascist mouth wattering. It even made mine water, though I knew he was lying.

Ironically, even as Khomeini empowered some women, he also found ways of oppressing their entire gender. The regime replaced the shah’s secular law with an Islamic law, which allowed men to marry up to four wives, to divorce them whenever the husbands wished, and to retain custody of children. The law put the value of a woman’s life at half of that of a man’s life, and the value of her testimony at half that of a man’s testimony. Thus women in Iran became watchdogs and scapegoats, both the foot soldiers of the new regime and its victims. Newly empowered, they were also newly oppressed. Theirs was a paradoxical plight—and at the time, no one could have foreseen how it would one day make women a force of enormous change in Iran.

She was listening to a voice, a much loved voice, a voice of authority, which said: simplify your life, travel light, do not become involved with family problems, possessions, or the troubles of others, do not marry, marriage ends truthfulness, live with solitude, solitude is essential if real thinking is to take place. She thought, he will never forgive, me, he will despise me and cast me out, he warned me against the ambiguous Eros, the deceiver, the magician, the sophist, the maker of drugs and poisons. Of course I am in love, yes, this is love, and I am sick with it - but what follows? Do I really believe that I shall give over my life, the whole of my life, which is only just now really beginning to another person? Shall I cease forever to be the cat that walks by herself in the wild lone? What has happened to my soldierly completeness with which I was so content, my satisfaction and my pride?

I was a lonely nightwalker and a steady stander-at-corners. I liked to walk through the wet town after midnight, when the streets were deserted and the window lights out, alone and alive on the glistening tramlines in dead and empty High Street under the moon, gigantically sad in the damp streets by ghostly Ebenezer Chapel. And I never felt more a part of the remote and overpressing world, or more full of love and arrogance and pity and humility, not for myself alone, but for the living earth I suffered on and for the unfeeling systems in the upper air, Mars and Venus and Brazell and Skully, men in China and St Thomas, scorning girls and ready girls, soldiers and bullies and policemen and sharp, suspicious buyers of secondhand books, bad, ragged women who’d pretend against the museum wall for a cup of tea, and perfect, unapproachable women out of the fashion magazines, seven feet high, sailing slowly in their flat, glazed creations through steel and glass and velvet.

It is a proud and lonely thing to be a stainless steel rat - and it is the greatest experience in the galaxy if you can get away with it. The sociological experts can't seem to agree why we exist, some even doubt that we do. The most widely accepted theory says that we are victims of delayed psychological disturbance that shows no evidence in childhood when it can be detected and corrected and only appears later in life. I have naturally given a lot of thought to the topic and I don't hold with that idea at all. [...] My theory is that the aberration is a philosophical one, not a psychological one. At a certain stage the realization strikes through that one must either live outside of society's bonds or die of absolute boredom. There is no future or freedom in the circumscribed life and the only other life is complete rejection of the rules. There is no longer room for the soldier of fortune or the gentleman adventurer who can live both within and outside of society. Today it is all or nothing. To save my own sanity I chose the nothing.

Then a thought hit me like a ton of slag. Arlene wouldn’t bother taking time in this hellhole to scribble her mark unless she had a damned good reason. Not just to point out the sphere—if she knew it was there, she’d have used it herself like a good soldier. The only logical conclusion was that the arrow pointed the way out of the nuclear plant—the way Arlene Sanders had already gone. Like Arne Saknussen, she marked her own trail for all who followed. So why hadn’t I found it? Same way Arlene missed the patio door: there had to be another hidden door nearby that I had missed. Third time’s the charm. The damned door couldn’t have been more than five feet from the one I had found. One good push and it was open, leading to a beautiful piece of straight, well-lit corridor that reached its end with a clean, massive metal door that had printed on it the welcome letters EXIT—obviously a holdover from the plant’s mundane days as a hangout for humans. Feeling bold and unstoppable, I walked right up to that door and discovered that it required a computer key card before it would bless the lonely traveler with an open sesame. Great. Now I could be miserable again.

There was a warrior once who fought Against man's subtlest, mightiest foe, And more than valiant deeds he wrought T' effect th' enslaver's overthrow. But ah! how dread was his campaign, Forc'd in the wilderness to stray, Lone, hungry, stung with grief and pain, And thus sustain the arduous fray. Prompt at each call from place to place, 'Mid sin's dark shade and sorrow's flow, He sped to save man's erring race, And bear for him the vengeful blow. But when his soldiers saw the strife, When imminent the danger grew, Though 'twas for them he pledg'd his life, Like dastards from the field they flew. Wearied, forsaken, still he strove, And gain'd the glorious victory; Yet such achievements few could move, To hail his triumpn 'beath the sky. Dying he conquer'd; yet at last No human honours grac'd his bier; No trumpet wail'd its mournful blast, No muffl'd drum made music drear. But when he dy'd the rocks were rent, The sun his radiant beams withheld, All nature shudder'd at th' event, And horror every bosom swell'd. E'en Death, fell Death! could not detain Him, who for man his life had given, He burst the ineffectual chain, And soar'd his advocate to heaven.

_To Santa Claus_ Most tangible of all the gods that be, O Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy! As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then, Take us as children to thy heart again. Be wholly good to us, just as of old: As a pleased father, let thine arms infold Us, homed within the haven of thy love, And all the cheer and wholesomeness thereof. Thou lone reality, when O so long Life's unrealities have wrought us wrong: Ambition hath allured us--, fame likewise, And all that promised honor in men's eyes. Throughout the world's evasions, wiles, and shifts, Thou only bidest stable as thy gifts--: A grateful king re-ruleth from thy lap, Crowned with a little tinselled soldier-cap: A mighty general-- a nation's pride-- Thou givest again a rocking-horse to ride, And wildly glad he groweth as the grim Old jurist with the drum thou givest him: The sculptor's chisel, at thy mirth's command, Is as a whistle in his boyish hand; The painters model fadeth utterly, And there thou standest--, and he painteth thee--: Most like a winter pippin, sound and fine And tingling-red that ripe old face of thine, Set in thy frosty beard of cheek and chin As midst the snows the thaws of spring set in. Ho! Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy-- Most tangible of all the gods that be--! As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then, Take us as children to thy heart again.

It is recorded that during the long winter after the Battle of Fredericksburg, when the two rival armies were camped on opposite sides of the Rappahannock, with the boys on the opposing picket posts daily swapping coffee for tobacco and comparing notes on their generals, their rations, and other matters, and with each camp in full sight and hearing of the other, one evening massed Union bands came down to the river bank to play all of the old songs, plus the more rousing tunes like "John Brown's Body," "The Battle Cry of Freedom," and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching." Northerners and Southerners, the soldiers sang those songs or sat and listened to them, massed in their thousands on the hillsides, while the darkness came down to fill the river valley and the light of the campfires glinted off the black water. Finally the Southerners called across, "Now play some of ours," so without pause the Yankee bands swung into "Dixie" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag" and "Maryland, My Maryland," and then at last the massed bands played "Home, Sweet Home," and 150,000 fighting men tried to sing it and choked up and just sat there, silent, staring off into the darkness; and at last the music died away and the bandsmen put up their instruments and both armies went to bed. A few weeks later they were tearing each other apart in the lonely thickets around Chancellorsville.

O, Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who turn to you. Amen. . When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. I saw this happen today as the sun went down. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! No herons, no distant music, not even the taste of his lips. How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? . Life moves very fast. It rushes us from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds. . I smile and say nothing, . If I must be faithful to someone or something, then I have, first of all, to be faithful to myself. . Everything is an illusion - and that applies to material as well as spiritual things. . She had spent a lot of her life saying 'no' to things to which she would have liked to say 'yes', . My dear, it's better to be unhappy with a rich man than happy with a poor man, and over there you'll have far more chance of becoming an unhappy rich woman. . Love isn't that important. I didn't love your father at first, but money buys everything, even true love. . Hail Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who turn to you. Amen. . She would never find what she was looking for if she couldn't express herself. . At the moment, I'm far too lonely to think about love, but I have to believe that it will happen, that I will find a job and that I am here because I chose this fate. . Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant. . A writer once said that it is not time that changes man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone's mind is love. What nonsense! The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin. Love was undoubtedly one of the things capable of changing a person's whole life, from one moment to the next. . Again, she seemed like a stranger to herself. . I let fate choose which route I should take. . Some people were born to face life alone, and this is neither good nor bad, it is simply life. . I'm not a body with a soul, I'm a soul that has a visible part called the body. . She was doing it because she had nothing to lose, because her life was one of constant, day-to-day frustration. . Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings. . We are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. . No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. . However tempted she was to continue, however prepared she was for the challenges she had met on her path, all these months living alone with herself had taught her that there is always a right moment to stop something. . He knew everything about her, although she knew nothing about him. . She had opened a door which she didn't know how to close. . Our experiences have been entirely different, but we are both desperate people. . Free yourself from something that cost your heart even more. . One moment, you have nothing, the next, you have more than you can cope with. . Does a soldier go to war in order to kill the enemy? No, he goes in order to die for his country. . What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. . Because we don't want to forget who we are - nor can we. . This was simply a place where people gathered to worship something they could not understand.

The Unknown Soldier A tale to tell in bloody rhyme, A story to last ’til the dawn of end’s time. Of a loving boy who left dear home, To bear his countries burdens; her honor to sow. –A common boy, I say, who left kith and kin, To battle der Kaiser and all that was therein. The Arsenal of Democracy was his kind, –To make the world safe–was their call and chime. Trained he thus in the far army camps, Drilled he often in the march and stamp. Laughed he did with new found friends, Lived they together for the noble end. Greyish mottled images clipp’ed and hack´ed– Black and white broke drum Ʀ…ɧ..λ..t…ʮ..m..ȿ —marching armies off to ’ttack. Images scratched, chopped, theatrical exaggerate, Confetti parades, shouts of high praise To where hell would sup and partake with all bon hope as the transport do them take Faded icons board the ship– To steel them away collaged together –joined in spirit and hip. Timeworn humanity of once what was To broker peace in eagles and doves. Mortal clay in the earth but to grapple and smite As warbirds ironed soar in heaven’s light. All called all forward to divinities’ kept date, Heroes all–all aces and fates. Paris–Used to sing and play at some cards, A common Joe everybody knew from own heart. He could have been called ‘the kid’ by the ‘old man,’ But a common private now taking orders to stand. Receiving letters from his shy sweet one, Read them over and over until they faded to none. Trained like hell with his Commander-in-Arms, –To avoid the dangers of a most bloody harm. Aye, this boy was mortal, true enough said, He could be one of thousands alive but now surely dead. How he sang and cried and ate the gruel of rations, And grumbled as soldiers do at war’s great contagions. Out–out to the battle this young did go, To become a man; the world to show. (An ocean away his mother cried so– To return her boy safe as far as the heavens go). Lay he down in trenched hole, With balls bursting overhead upon the knoll. Listened hardnfast to the “Sarge” bearing the news, —“We’re going over soon—” was all he knew. The whistle blew; up and over they went, Charging the Hun, his life to be spent (“Avoid the gas boys that’ll blister yer arse!!”). Running through wires razored and deadened trees, Fell he into a gouge to find in shelter of need (They say he bayoneted one just as he–, face to face in War’s Dance of trialed humanity). A nameless sonnuvabitch shell then did untimely RiiiiiiiP the field asunder in burrrstzʑ–and he tripped. And on the field of battle’s blood did he die, Faceless in a puddle as blurrs of ghosting men shrieked as they were fleeing by–. Perished he alone in the no man’s land, Surrounded by an army of his brother’s teeming bands . . . And a world away a mother sighed, Listened to the rain and lay down and cried. . . . Today lays the grave somber and white, Guarded decades long in both the dark and the light. Silent sentinels watch o’er and with him do walk, Speak they neither; their duty talks. Lone, stark sentries perform the unsmiling task, –Guarding this one dead–at the nation’s bequest. Cared over day and night in both rain or sun, Present changing of the guard and their duty is done (The changing of the guard ’tis poetry motioned A Nation defining itself–telling of rifles twirl-clicking under the intensest of devotions). This poem–of The Unknown, taken thus, Is rend eternal by Divinity’s Iron Trust. How he, a common soldier, gained the estate Of bearing his countries glory unto his unknown fate. Here rests in honored glory a warrior known but to God, Now rests he in peace from the conflict path he trod. He is our friend, our family, brother, our mother’s son –belongs he to us all, For he has stood in our place–heeding God’s final call.

When a middle school teacher in San Antonio, Texas, named Rick Riordan began thinking about the troublesome kids in his class, he was struck by a topsy-turvy idea. Maybe the wild ones weren’t hyperactive; maybe they were misplaced heroes. After all, in another era the same behavior that is now throttled with Ritalin and disciplinary rap sheets would have been the mark of greatness, the early blooming of a true champion. Riordan played with the idea, imagining the what-ifs. What if strong, assertive children were redirected rather than discouraged? What if there were a place for them, an outdoor training camp that felt like a playground, where they could cut loose with all those natural instincts to run, wrestle, climb, swim, and explore? You’d call it Camp Half-Blood, Riordan decided, because that’s what we really are—half animal and half higher-being, halfway between each and unsure how to keep them in balance. Riordan began writing, creating a troubled kid from a broken home named Percy Jackson who arrives at a camp in the woods and is transformed when the Olympian he has inside is revealed, honed, and guided. Riordan’s fantasy of a hero school actually does exist—in bits and pieces, scattered across the globe. The skills have been fragmented, but with a little hunting, you can find them all. In a public park in Brooklyn, a former ballerina darts into the bushes and returns with a shopping bag full of the same superfoods the ancient Greeks once relied on. In Brazil, a onetime beach huckster is reviving the lost art of natural movement. And in a lonely Arizona dust bowl called Oracle, a quiet genius disappeared into the desert after teaching a few great athletes—and, oddly, Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers—the ancient secret of using body fat as fuel. But the best learning lab of all was a cave on a mountain behind enemy lines—where, during World War II, a band of Greek shepherds and young British amateurs plotted to take on 100,000 German soldiers. They weren’t naturally strong, or professionally trained, or known for their courage. They were wanted men, marked for immediate execution. But on a starvation diet, they thrived. Hunted and hounded, they got stronger. They became such natural born heroes, they decided to follow the lead of the greatest hero of all, Odysseus, and

We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; — World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems. With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world's great cities, And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire's glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure Can trample a kingdom down. We, in the ages lying, In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself in our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth. A breath of our inspiration Is the life of each generation; A wondrous thing of our dreaming Unearthly, impossible seeming — The soldier, the king, and the peasant Are working together in one, Till our dream shall become their present, And their work in the world be done. They had no vision amazing Of the goodly house they are raising; They had no divine foreshowing Of the land to which they are going: But on one man's soul it hath broken, A light that doth not depart; And his look, or a word he hath spoken, Wrought flame in another man's heart. And therefore to-day is thrilling With a past day's late fulfilling; And the multitudes are enlisted In the faith that their fathers resisted, And, scorning the dream of to-morrow, Are bringing to pass, as they may, In the world, for its joy or its sorrow, The dream that was scorned yesterday. But we, with our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see, Our souls with high music ringing: O men! it must ever be That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. For we are afar with the dawning And the suns that are not yet high, And out of the infinite morning Intrepid you hear us cry — How, spite of your human scorning, Once more God's future draws nigh, And already goes forth the warning That ye of the past must die. Great hail! we cry to the comers From the dazzling unknown shore; Bring us hither your sun and your summers; And renew our world as of yore; You shall teach us your song's new numbers, And things that we dreamed not before: Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers, And a singer who sings no more.

Since the start of his presidency, Barack had asked his correspondence staff to include ten letters or messages from constituents inside his briefing book, selected from the roughly fifteen thousand letters and emails that poured in daily. He read each one carefully, jotting responses in the margins so that a staffer could prepare a reply or forward a concern on to a cabinet secretary. He read letters from soldiers. From prison inmates. From cancer patients struggling to pay health-care premiums and from people who’d lost their homes to foreclosure. From gay people who hoped to be able to legally marry and from Republicans who felt he was ruining the country. From moms, grandfathers, and young children. He read letters from people who appreciated what he did and from others who wanted to let him know he was an idiot. He read all of it, seeing it as part of the responsibility that came with the oath. He had a hard and lonely job—the hardest and loneliest in the world, it often seemed to me—but he knew that he had an obligation to stay open, to shut nothing out. While the rest of us slept, he took down the fences and let everything inside.

The last bit of work he did, usually at some hour past midnight, was to read letters from American citizens. Since the start of his presidency, Barack had asked his correspondence staff to include ten letters or messages from constituents inside his briefing book, selected from the roughly fifteen thousand letters and emails that poured in daily. He read each one carefully, jotting responses in the margins so that a staffer could prepare a reply or forward a concern on to a cabinet secretary. He read letters from soldiers. From prison inmates. From cancer patients struggling to pay health-care premiums and from people who’d lost their homes to foreclosure. From gay people who hoped to be able to legally marry and from Republicans who felt he was ruining the country. From moms, grandfathers, and young children. He read letters from people who appreciated what he did and from others who wanted to let him know he was an idiot. He read all of it, seeing it as part of the responsibility that came with the oath. He had a hard and lonely job—the hardest and loneliest in the world, it often seemed to me—but he knew that he had an obligation to stay open, to shut nothing out. While the rest of us slept, he took down the fences and let everything inside.

Properly speaking, since my business in town had finished, I should have gone back to Corps headquarters and got on with my paperwork. Somehow, though, I felt that would be a bad idea. It’s inconceivable that the general, or the admiral or the Chamberlain or one of the divisional chiefs, or one of their many, many staff, would arrange for a serving officer of the empire to be murdered as he rode home alone along the lonely roads across the moors. But even in an empire as well ordered as ours, there are bandits, discharged soldiers, runaway slaves, disaffected serfs, religious zealots and ordinary loons, all manner of bad people who’d cut your throat for the nails in your boots, and from time to time officers who’d made nuisances of themselves had fallen foul of them, and other hazards of long-distance travel.

I don’t know where you think you men are, but if you expect to become Rangers then I expect you to know our creed.” His eyes found me. “I know for a fact Old Navy here doesn’t know the Ranger Creed.” I’d been studying it for months and could have recited it while standing on my head. For effect, I cleared my throat and got loud. “Recognizing that I volunteered as a Ranger, fully knowing the hazards of my chosen profession, I will always endeavor to uphold the prestige, honor, and high spirit de corps of the Rangers!” “Very surpri…” He tried to cut me off, but I wasn’t done. “Acknowledging the fact that a Ranger is a more elite Soldier who arrives at the cutting edge of battle by land, sea, or air, I accept the fact that as a Ranger my country expects me to move further, faster, and fight harder than any other Solider!” The RI nodded with a wry smile, but this time stayed out of my way. “Never shall I fail my comrades! I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong, and morally straight, and I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be, 100 percent and then some! “Gallantly will I show the world that I am a specially selected and well-trained Soldier! My courtesy to superior officers, neatness of dress, and care of equipment shall set the example for others to follow! “Energetically will I meet the enemies of my country! I shall defeat them on the field of battle for I am better trained and will fight with all my might! Surrender is not a Ranger word! I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my country! “Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor! “Rangers lead the way!” I recited all six stanzas, and afterward he shook his head in disbelief, and mulled the ideal way to get the last laugh. “Congratulations, Goggins,” he said, “you are now first sergeant.

How did you become a vampire?” She turned away from his piercing gaze and bent to pluck a blade of new grass from the ground. He was silent for a long moment before at last he replied, “I was a knight in King Henry’s army, and I fell on the field during what is now known as the Battle of Ancrum Moor in the year 1545, during the ‘rough wooing.’ Do you know much about it?” “That was back when Henry the Eighth was attacking Scotland in an effort to force them to make an alliance with England.” Angelica sneered. “What a tyrant! I am glad the Scots won.” The duke chuckled. “Careful, my sweet, you come close to speaking treason.” She blushed as she realized that he had been fighting on Henry’s side. “I did not mean—” “You are right, Angel,” he said, still laughing. “He was a tyrant, indeed. Anyway, my horse was hit with an arrow, and I was thrown and knocked unconscious. When I awoke, night had fallen, and a lone Scotsman approached me. I thought he was a soldier until I saw his glowing green eyes and bared fangs. In a trice, he was upon me, tearing my throat with his fangs and gulping my blood. I would have died if another vampire had not stopped him.” The duke took a deep breath and continued. “The Scots vampire fled and my rescuer Changed me. He taught me what I needed to know about being a vampire. He then told me to return to my home and live among the mortals. King Henry thought that I had been taken prisoner and escaped. He was so impressed with my ‘bravery’ that he made me the Duke of Burnrath the moment I finished my lie. I became Lord of London only fifty years ago. So, there you have it.” “That

Cooper had a theory about personality. Most people considered personality to be a singular identity. Malleable, sure, but essentially cohesive. But he tended to see people as more of a chorus. Every stage in life added a voice to that chorus. The different iterations of himself—lonely military brat, cocky teenager, faithful soldier, young husband, dedicated father, relentless hunter—they all existed within him. When he saw a ten-year-old girl, there was a ten-year-old boy inside him that thought she was pretty. Just one voice in a chorus of dozens, which was what marked the difference between healthy people and broken ones; in the broken ones, the inappropriate voices held an inappropriate number of spaces.

Freed of the burden I had been carrying, I moved on, this time circling east. Under an overpass at Nogizaka, north of Roppongi-dori, I saw a half-dozen chinpira, gaudy in sleek racing leathers, squatting in a tight semicircle, their low-slung metal motorcycles parked on the footpath alongside them. Fragments of their conversation skipped off the concrete wall to my right, the words unintelligible but the notes tuned as tight as the tricked-out exhaust pipes of their machines. They were probably jacked on kakuseizai, the methamphetamine that has been the Japanese drug of choice since the government distributed it to soldiers and workers during World War II, and of which these chinpira were doubtless both purveyors and consumers. They were waiting for the drug-induced hum in their muscles and brains to hit the right pitch, for the hour to grow suitably late and the night more seductively dark, before emerging from their concrete lair and answering the neon call of Roppongi. I watched them take notice of me, a solitary figure approaching from the southern end of what was in effect a narrow tunnel. I considered crossing the street, but a metal divider made that maneuver unfeasible. I might simply have backed up and taken a different route. My failure to do so made it more difficult for me to deny that I was indeed heading toward the cemetery.

Another favorite hymn mourns Israel's lonely exile from the Son of God. Another years for a future in which every knee will bow to Jesus. Another urges Christian soldiers onward, marching as to war. When I imagined singing it with a Muslim or Hindu student sitting next to me, my voice dried up. It was a song for insiders, not outsiders. If I had learned anything from going on all of those class field trips, it was how religious language sounds to outsiders, and how much that matters.

The closer someone lived to someone who was lonely, the lonelier the second individual felt. The same was true for depression, but the blockbuster was about happiness. Happiness was even more contagious than loneliness or depression, and it worked across time. If person A’s happiness went up at time 1, person B’s—living next door—went up at time 2. And so did person C’s, two doors away, by somewhat less. Even person D, three doors away, enjoyed more happiness. This has significant implications for morale among groups of soldiers and for leadership. On the negative side, it suggests that a few sad or lonely or angry apples can spoil the morale of the entire unit. Commanders have known this forever. But the news is that positive morale is even more powerful and can boost the well-being and the performance of the entire unit. This makes the cultivation of happiness—a badly neglected side of leadership—important, perhaps crucial.

Tha’ir Hamad was a twenty-two-year-old lone Palestinian sniper who’d carried out an attack on soldiers at a checkpoint at the beginning of the Second Intifada.

So did you, like, jerk off over me, or what?” My mouth falls open. “I…” She laughs. “It’s okay. It’s sort of a given when you do lingerie shoots that people are gonna wank over the shots. And I’d much rather it be a lonely soldier in his barracks than some creepy stalker.” “I didn’t, though,” I say honestly. “Hm?” “I didn’t—do that. Which probably makes it weirder.

It would be misleading, however, to give the impression that all who took up arms in 1861 were moved by hatred of Yankees, or that all who expressed hostility felt any considerable depth of antipathy. Later events proved the contrary. The dominant urge of many volunteers was the desire for adventure. War, with its offering of travel to far places, of intimate association with large numbers of other men, of the glory and excitement of battle, was an alluring prospect to farmers who in peace spent long lonely hours between plow handles, to mechanics who worked day in and day out at cluttered benches, to storekeepers who through endless months measured jeans cloth or weighed sowbelly, to teachers who labored year after year with indifferent success to drill the rudiments of knowledge into unwilling heads, and to sons of planters who dallied with the classics in halls of learning.

went under a tree near the statue of the Unknown Soldier. He looked so lonely there in the rain (the

My job had nothing to do with Irish mobsters. I didn’t need the Feds crawling up my ass every time someone farted in my direction and certainly had no interest in the framework of gang leaders and soldiers. I was a lone wolf,

the rules of engagement are a clear and present danger, frightening young soldiers, who have been placed in harm’s way by their government, into believing they may be charged with murder if they defend themselves too vigorously.

What people miss presumably isn’t danger or loss but the unity that these things often engender. There are obvious stresses on a person in a group, but there may be even greater stresses on a person in isolation, so during disasters there is a net gain in well-being. Most primates, including humans, are intensely social, and there are very few instances of lone primates surviving in the wild. A modern soldier returning from combat—or a survivor of Sarajevo—goes from the kind of close-knit group that humans evolved for, back into a society where most people work outside the home, children are educated by strangers, families are isolated from wider communities, and personal gain almost completely eclipses collective good. Even if he or she is part of a family, that is not the same as belonging to a group that shares resources and experiences almost everything collectively. Whatever the technological advances of modern society—and they’re nearly miraculous—the individualized lifestyles that those technologies spawn seem to be deeply brutalizing to the human spirit. “You’ll

The Song of the Camp By J.R.M. Far away in the piny woods, Where the dews fall heavy and damp, A soldier sat by the smoldering fire, And sang the song of the camp. It is not to be weary and worn, It is not to feel hunger and thirst, It is not the forced march, not the terrible fight, That seems to the solider the worst; But to sit through the comfortless hours, The lonely, dull hours that will come, With his head in his hands, and his eyes on the fire, And his thoughts on visions of home;

So, as time went on and the war was finally won and the last British soldiers departed for their homeland, the king’s messengers became couriers without an army. On rainy nights the eerie pair still roamed, galloping along forever with a message never to be delivered, the writer of the message long since dead and buried in the red earth of King’s Mountain. Settlements grew into towns, then cities, and the two riders became wary of the main roads, taking to the country lanes in their endless search for the way to Charlottesburg. Some say you can still see them. A cold, rainy night in early October is the best time to look for the King’s Messengers. For then they were most apt to suddenly appear galloping over the hill on some lonely dirt road between King’s Mountain and Salisbury, two specters hurtling through the night on their phantom steeds, pausing sporadically to inquire the way to Charlottesburg. And, if by chance they should ask you, it doesn’t really matter in which direction you point for even with the best of directions an invisible power thwarts and diverts the restless apparitions at every turn. —The King’s Messengers

spring of 1915, nearly a year after the start of the Great War, when a stocky, prematurely balding serviceman arrived on leave in the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s grandiose capital of Vienna. His name was Jakob Georg Goldberger, and it was on that afternoon that he first glimpsed and fell instantly in love with a high school girl, Franzi Gutmann, thirteen years his junior. Was it sordid? Just another tiresome example of male foolishness? Or was it more romantic, a lonely soldier searching for innocence in a misery-soaked world? Raised

I love you,” she said slowly, her hand returning to stroke down his chest again, “because you wrestle with stone walls when you’d rather drink yourself mindless. I love you because you take my recipes seriously and you gave me your apple tart recipe, asking nothing in return. I love you because it matters to you when I cry and when Winnie is scared and difficult and lost. I love you because you pray for dead horses and you bought that awful, stinky dog so Winnie wouldn’t be so lonely. You went to see Rose and you forgave your mother and you’ve fought and fought and fought…” She leaned in against him, her arms around his waist, while his remained at his sides. “You fought for Winnie,” she went on, voice breaking. “You fought my stupid, wrongheaded schemes for Winnie, so Winnie wouldn’t suffer what you did, so I wouldn’t die of a broken heart as your m-mother did. I love you because you fought so hard… I surrender, Devlin St. Just. I love you, and I surrender for all time.” She wept against him, not even registering when his arms slowly crept around her nor when his chin rested against her temple. “You surrender?” he murmured quietly, his hands rubbing slow circles on her back. “Unconditionally?” “Not unconditionally,” Emmie replied through her tears. “I demand you take me prisoner.” “It will be my pleasure,” St. Just replied. “But, Em? I surrender, too.” And

animal might be lonely, or wanted a scratch on his

Men who have survived close-quarters killing know that humans are possessed of a deep-seated, innate reluctance to kill their own species. I believe there are evolutionary explanations for the existence of this reluctance, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the fundamental purpose of basic training for most soldiers is to employ classical and operant conditioning techniques to suppress the reluctance. I know modern training accomplishes this objective with ruthless effectiveness. I also know the training deals better with the reluctance than it does with the regret.

There is no way to overestimate the critical importance of adult teamwork and communication when we have challenging students like Toni. In isolation, teachers can feel like the last soldier on the battlefield, defending modern civilization against the potential chaos of a world filled with unruly teenagers. Toni was seen as one of those chaos-threatening students. She would often display her bad behavior in front of a lone teacher, provoking all of the consequences the adult had available. As a teacher once admitted to me when reflecting on his own emotional buildup and fear of losing control, which had propelled him to become more harshly punitive than he even expected he could be: "Not on my watch were we going to lose the battle!" When teachers have time to collaborate with each other and administrators, the metaphor of war can be put aside, and we can return to the boundless terrain of education.

...Chief without soldiers is just a very lonely man in a big bloody field

You can call me, Tyler, Miss Dandridge.” “That would hardly be appropriate, Mr. Atherton. I do see, however, you are a soldier.” “Yes, ma’am. A lieutenant in the Texas Third Cavalry.” Tyler’s gaze never left Hannah’s. William felt a strange sense of jealousy wash over him when Hannah offered Tyler a smile. “Then perhaps you would allow me to call you . . . Lieutenant.” Tyler laughed and gave a sweeping bow. “You can call me anything, ma’am, so long as it ain’t late to the dinner table.” His men laughed, as well, and even Hannah appeared amused.

William looked at Tyler. “I’m going after her.” “You want us to come with you?” Tyler asked. “My men and I could—” Holding up his hand, William shook his head. “No. We can’t go storming into a Comanche village and not expect things to go horribly wrong. If I show up there with a bunch of soldiers, they aren’t going to take it as a friendly move.” “Going alone isn’t the best idea you’ve ever had, either. What if another band of Comanche or Kiowa come your way?” “That’s why I’m taking the sorrel. He’s the fastest horse we have. He can outrun any Indian mount.” William looked back to Juanita. “Would you pack me some supplies? I’ll head out as soon as they’re ready.” Juanita nodded and hurried with Pepita into the house. “I should have known she’d do something like this,” William said.

Without warning, she heard shouts from outside and then blood-curdling yells filled the air. Gunfire followed, causing Hannah to jump to her feet. She hurried to see what was happening amidst the chaos and had just reached the flap of the tepee when someone came crashing through. Falling backwards, Hannah clung to the person who somehow seemed to roll to one side and take the impact of their fall. It was then that Hannah saw that William Barnett was the man holding her. “What’s happening?” she demanded. Bullets zinged around them, cutting through the hide of the shelter. William pushed her head down against his chest and covered her. “Soldiers,” he managed to tell her above the din. “We’re under attack by the Frontier Army.” Hannah felt a chill wash over her. How had the soldiers found them? Would they kill everyone or were they merely trying to frighten them? “Hannah, listen to me,” William said, taking hold of her face. “We need to get out of here. The ground slopes down to the river just behind the tepee. I’ll cut our way out. Stay down on the ground and move toward the river once we’re outside.” “But why? Why do we have to leave?” she asked. “They’ll see that we are white and not harm us.” “They won’t stop long enough to check skin color,” he replied. “If you’re living here, they’re gonna figure you to be Comanche or else soiled by association. Now, come on.

Other times there’s a form of denial at work. Circuitous routes, extensive security checks, an ongoing internal dialogue consisting of If I were trying to get to me, how would I do it? all require a deep acceptance of the notion that there are people out there who have both the motive and the means to cut short your time on earth. This notion is innately uncomfortable for the human psyche, so much so that it produces enormous stress even for soldiers in battle. A lot of guys, the first time they come under close-range fire, they’re shocked. “Why’s he trying to kill me?” they’re asking themselves. “What did I ever do to him?

She went silent but shuddered again. When it happened a third time, he realized the woman he was holding was near tears, and he forgot all about thunder, artillery, and infantry. “Miss Farnum?” She burrowed into his chest. “Emmaline?” The crying was still not audible, but her body gave off heat, and when he bent his face to her, his nose grazed her damp cheek. “Hush, now.” He gathered her into his embrace and stroked her hair back from her face in a long, slow caress. “You mustn’t take on. Winnie won’t go anywhere for many years, and you will always be dear to her.” He pattered on, no longer aware of the storm outside, so wrapped up was he with this much more personal upheaval. Her words came back to him, the words about Winnie’s deserving and not having a papa’s affections, Winnie’s not being able to trust a gentleman’s advances, Winnie’s being sent away. Winnie, indeed. He let her cry, and soothed and comforted as best he could, but eventually she quieted. “I am mortified,” she whispered, her face pressed to his chest. “You will think me an unfit influence on Bronwyn.” “I think you very brave,” he said, his nose brushing her forehead. “Very resourceful but also a little tired of being such a good girl and more than a little lonely.” She said nothing for a moment but stopped her nascent struggle to get off his lap. “You forgot, a lot embarrassed,” she said at length. “I get like this—” She stopped abruptly, and he felt heat suffuse her face where her cheek lay against his throat. “You get like this when your menses approach. I have five sisters, if you will recall.” He tried without much success to keep the humor from his voice. “And do they fall weeping into the lap of the first gentleman to show them simple decency?” Emmie asked sternly. “If he were the first gentleman in years of managing on their own, then yes, I think they would be moved to tears.

The spiritual pride, which in mine Host of the Candlestick mantled in a sort of supercilious hypocrisy, was in this man's face elevated and yet darkened by genuine and undoubting fanaticism. It was impossible to behold him without imagination placing him in some strange crisis, where religious zeal was the ruling principle. A martyr at the stake, a soldier in the field, a lonely and banished wanderer consoled by the intensity and supposed purity of his faith under every earthly privation; perhaps a persecuting inquisitor, as terrific in power as unyielding in adversity; any of these seemed congenial characters to his personage. With these high traits of energy, there was something in the affected precision and solemnity of his deportment and discourse that bordered upon the ludicrous; so that, according to the mood of the spectator's mind, and the light under which Mr. Gilfillan presented himself, one might have feared, admired or laughed at him.

You don’t need to be a hero.” I stiffened. A year ago, when I’d arrived on the decks of the Saratoga to set sail for Manila, I’d lived a small life. I was lonely and knew little about friendship. But since I’d been here in the Philippines, I’d become a part of something bigger than myself. This sprawling group of nurses and doctors and soldiers had become my family, and while serving alongside them, I’d learned I could withstand fear and deprivation and help others. That shy orphaned farm girl was half a world away and in her place was someone I barely recognized—but I liked her a lot. Now I was strong, independent, and resourceful. Though saying no to George hurt like hell, I knew it was the right answer.

a marked change occurred between 2019 and 2020. The dual crises of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests ran slam into the twin dangers of Q-Anon and the consolidation of the Trump paramilitary. In 2019, there were sixty-five incidents of domestic terrorism or attempted violence, but in the run-up to the election in 2020, that number nearly doubled, according to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Twenty-one plots were disrupted by law enforcement.5 Violent extremists in the United States and terrorists in the Middle East have remarkably similar pathways to radicalization. Both are motivated by devotion to a charismatic leader, are successful at smashing political norms, and are promised a future racially homogeneous paradise. Modern American terrorists are much more akin to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) than they are to the old Ku Klux Klan. Though they take offense at that comparison, the similarities are quite remarkable. Most American extremists are not professional terrorists on par with their international counterparts. They lack operational proficiency and weapons. But they do not lack in ruthlessness, targets, or ideology. However, the overwhelming number of white nationalist extremists operate as lone wolves. Like McVeigh in the 1990s and others from the 1980s, they hope their acts will motivate the masses to follow in their footsteps. ISIS radicals who abandon their homes and immigrate to the Syria-Iraq border “caliphate” almost exclusively self-radicalize by watching terrorist videos. The Trump insurgents are radicalizing in the exact same way. Hundreds of tactical training videos easily accessible on social media show how to shoot, patrol, and fight like special forces soldiers. These video interviews and lessons explaining how to assemble body armor or make IEDs and extolling the virtues of being part of the armed resistance supporting Donald Trump fill Facebook and Instagram feeds. Some even call themselves the “Boojahideen,” an English take on the Arabic “mujahideen,” or holy warrior. U.S. insurgents in the making often watch YouTube and Facebook videos of tactical military operations, gear reviews, and shooting how-tos. They then go out to buy rifles, magazines, ammunition, combat helmets, and camouflage clothing and seek out other “patriots” to prepare for armed action. This is pure ISIS-like self-radicalization. One could call them Vanilla ISIS.

With the Allies on the advance nearly everywhere and invasion talk in the air, London was a welcoming place for young airmen who were taking the fight to Hitler’s doorstep. The first stop for American airmen was usually the nearest Red Cross Club, where helpful volunteers made bookings free of charge at commercial hotels or at one of the Red Cross’s own dormitory-like facilities. After checking in and dropping off their kits, most men headed straight for Rainbow Corner. Located on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus, it was a place as close to home as a GI could find in all of England. Administered by the American Red Cross, Rainbow Corner had been designed “to create a strictly American atmosphere.” There was an exact replica of a small-town corner drugstore in the club’s basement, where ice-cold Cokes were sold for a nickel and grilled hamburgers for a dime. Upstairs, in the grand ballroom, servicemen danced with volunteer hostesses to the driving music of soldier bands—the Flying Forts, the Thunderbolts, the Sky Blazers. There was also a lounge with a jukebox and a small dance floor with tables and chairs around it. Lonely GIs dunking donuts in fresh coffee would loaf there, listening to the latest American hits. Rainbow Corner never closed its doors. The key had been symbolically thrown away the day of the grand opening in November 1942.

Being in a combat zone is almost a constant adrenaline rush, and it should be. The moment you get comfortable and complacent is the moment you lose. When you’re on a deployment, it almost feels like time stops, or maybe it feels more like you’re in some kind of a twilight zone. Your family and friends are all moving on without you while you’re stuck living the same day over and over, like in the movie Groundhog Day. You get up, conduct personal hygiene, report to duty, conduct physical fitness somewhere in there, and do personal hygiene again before you pass out in your bunk for the night. If you’re lucky, you might get to sleep through the night. The base sirens would interrupt other nights, signaling you to grab your gear and get in a bunker. Your friends and family back home don’t understand this. They don’t understand the fear, the adrenaline rush, the twilight zone effect, and it sometimes seems pretty lonely. But you’re not alone. No matter what walk of life you’ve come from, you’re not alone. Everyone out there is in a similar situation and understands what it’s like. They become your new family during the deployment. While deployed, there’s a good chance you’ll see and/or experience things that will haunt you. Some learn to detach themselves from those situations and almost experience them from a bird’s eye view, somehow making them seem less real. Often, soldiers cope by making light of a bad situation. As a result, dark humor runs rampant amongst Service Members. While those on the outside may see that dark humor as cruel, it is just another way that you learn to deal with the atrocities of war. I digress. Let’s get back into it.

The receptionist called. Nervous. I asked what the problem was. ‘There is a General and soldiers here for you Ma’am’, she said. ‘Okay, let them come upstairs to the meeting room’, I instructed her. A few minutes later, the elevator arrived and indeed a General and his helpers, in full uniform and armed, entered. ‘What can I help you with General?’ I asked. He started to threaten me, ‘We need access to your network. You need to buy digital interception equipment and install it before launch.’ This was really something we hadn’t taken into account. A bit disturbed Lone wolves 63 by all the overwhelming force, I promised to look into that. It turned out that only an Israeli company produced this probing equipment. Very expensive too.

The anger was nothing but a shield for pain, like a cornered soldier randomly throwing out grenades, scared for his life, lonely, desperate.

Hey,” Bucky snapped. “You’re so much more than a fucking suicide risk.”   Steve laughed sharply, without humor, and Bucky’s insides curdled. “Fuck you.”   “You listen to me, Steve Rogers,” Bucky said fiercely, his voice thick with tears, “You are a suicide risk,” (Bucky’s entire body shuddered at the words, his brain not even beginning to digest it, but he needed to say this now) “And you are an artist. And you are a fighter.” Steve flinched. “And you are a soldier.” A more violent flinch. “And you are a runaway. And you are a protector. And you are kind. And you are fucking smart as hell. And you are passionate. And you are a good fucking person.”   “You sound real convinced,” Steve said bitterly, but his voice was quieter.   “You’re a suicide risk,” Bucky said, and the mindless tears had not stopped yet. “But you are not just a suicide risk, you fucking asshole. You’re a fucking person.

Who you see in mirror is lonely, Reflections are nothing but a work of truth, We are the soldiers without a war, Betrayed once again by the lines…