| "I'd be screaming at them, telling them how much I detested their blind, thoughtless, automatic acquiescence to it all, their simple-minded patriotism, their prideful ignorance, their love-it-or-leave-it platitudes, how they were sending me off to fight a war they didn't understand and didn't want to understand." (The Things They Carried, p. 48). | To the average American, fighting in war seemed like the just, patriotic thing to do. However, hidden underneath the lavish extravagance of being loyal to one's country, the soldiers detested being sent off to a war that no one really understood. |