Catch-22 Chapter 23: Nately's Old Man

Nately is hopelessly in love with a prostitute who resents and ignores him. The men visit a brothel and all enjoy a wild, fantastic orgy except Nately, who is troubled by an old man in an armchair who pops rude, blasphemous jokes about America. Nately learns with horror that this scornful old man is the lunatic who poked Major ---- de Coverly's eye out with a red rose during a procession through Rome.

"'What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many counties can't all be worth dying for.'" Chapter 23, pg. 257