In the account book of the Great War the page recording the Russian losses has been ripped out. The figures are unknown. Five millions, or eight? We ourselves know not. All we know is that, at times, fighting the Russians, we had to remove the piles of enemy bodies from before our trenches, so as to get a clear field of fire against new waves of assault.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the immense and often unrecorded human cost of war, particularly the loss of life in the context of World War I.
Paul Von Hindenburg's quote emphasizes the tragic irony of war, where the exact toll on human life is often obscured or unrecorded amidst the chaos of battle. The ripping out of the page recording Russian losses symbolizes both the disregard for human life and the overwhelming scale of suffering in war. It serves as a haunting reminder that behind military statistics and strategies, there exists an unimaginable loss of life that is often forgotten or ignored.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the impacts of war during a Memorial Day event.
To be a good reporter, writing about war, you have to write about the people. It's not about the tanks or the RPGs or military strategy. It's always about the effect war has on civilians, on society, and how it disrupts and destroys lives.
So many nurses had turned into emotionally disturbed handmaidens of the war, in their yellow-and-crimson uniforms with bone buttons.
History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; WHICH men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.
We know now that in modern warfare, fought on any considerable scale, there can be no possible economic gain for any side. Win or lose, there is nothing but waste and destruction.
The wars don't end when you sign peace treaties or when the years go by. They will echo on until I'm gone and all the widows and orphans are gone.
The natural formation of the country is the soldier's best ally
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