On military experiences (and on Trump's "surprise" strike on Syria that again ignores the rule of law).

I remember very well that right after officer candidate school I experienced the happiness of simplification, of being a military man and not having to think things through; the happiness of being immersed in the life everyone else lived, that was accepted in our military milieu; the happiness of forgetting some of the spiritual subtleties inculcated since childhood.[1]

-          Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956.  Volume I (1973).

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[1] Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956.  An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Vol 1., tr. Thomas P. Whitney (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1973), p. 162.