January 20, 2008
What About War?
By Robert F. Hull Jr. For almost 50 years I have been haunted by this question. It began, I suppose, with Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Man He Killed,” which I first read as a junior high school class assignment: Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! _ But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him and he at me, And killed him in his place. _ I shot him dead because— Because he was my foe, Just so: my
