Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

"This is a stunning novel. I love the English gentleman element of it. You’ve got this well-educated man who really doesn’t mind killing Germans but what he doesn’t understand is the reason why he’s killing them. As the war continued he began to realise that it was for political reasons – the military industrial complex. There was too much power play – the Allies couldn’t stop because they need the Germans completely on their knees so everyone got the divvy-up of land and power. [dpnate] At one point, he describes being back on leave on a Sunday evening and there’s less ambient noise than we have now so he could hear the artillery fire in northern France. And he’s sitting in the Ritz and can’t understand why people won’t drink the Hock, just because it’s German. It’s cheap so he drinks it. He gets the Military Cross but chucks it back and he makes a speech saying he is willing to go back and fight but wants to know what he’s fighting for. It’s a fictional account but it’s obviously him and his life – understated in that way. Look, I’m not anti-war. You get Clausewitz saying that war is an extension of politics but it’s not – it’s part of politics. Politics is war without bloodshed and war is politics with bloodshed. That was Mao Tse-Tung, I think. Yes. Sassoon stood up for what he believed. Do you remember the defector Gordievsky ? He used to do talks and stuff for the intelligence services and members of the Special Forces were invited to the lectures. But a lot of us thought: ‘Why would we want to go and listen to him? He’s a traitor. He turned his back on something he said believed in.’ We have respect for terrorists too. Even the Real IRA or the Continuity IRA or whatever they call themselves. They’re saying: ‘We’re not going into the peace accord. I don’t want to be the minister for education. We wanted a union and you sold us out so fuck you.’ And the Taliban. You respect them because they are trying to kill you. So you have to respect them. If not you become slack and you die. I agree. I know. It’s a nightmare. A real nightmare. I saw a girl of eight or nine doused in petrol burning and everyone was ignoring her. We did what we could but she died. Apparently she’d been talking to a boy. It is a nightmare. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter But there’s also a lot of positive stuff we never hear about because media coverage is all about the bang bang. You know, the Russians put girls into school in Afghanistan when they were there and there are now mixed sex schools with boys and girls and a university for girls in Kabul. Students still have to have protection to go there because they never know if someone might shoot them but the girls are still going."