ABSTRACT
There you mustn't think . .. The first to think, dies. If you want to stay alive, keep moving. Move and shoot. Above all, never turn back.
Non-combatants cannot really understand the experience of war. That we can is a persistent myth born of increasingly pseudo-realistic war films and programmes, the seductive emotional resonances of war literature, and the often rather forlorn attempt to make it comprehensible by drawing analogies to more homely experiences like the thrill of the hunt. One can at least try to cut through some of the myths and preconceptions that surround any war, and this 'hidden war' in particular, by looking at how it intruded into the conscripts' lives, and what experiences and situations they faced.
