Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. By Paul Fussell. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. x, 330. $16.95.)

Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II. By Ronald Schaffer. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Pp. xiv, 272. $30.00.)

The main idea that the reader should gain from synthetically reviewing these three books is how damaging war can be mentally, physically, and culturally. The images that sear into the brain during war can cause extensive psychological trauma, can remain in the psyche of the victim for the rest of their life, and can cause future problems that are irreversible due to mental visualizations caused by imagination. War, in its nature, is physically demanding, and can be made an even greater burden for the future of the soldier, if an injury is sustained during combat, and...