Chapters 1 - 3 Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 1, "From Light to Heavy Duty", the book opens with a description of a pre-war iconic image—young, handsome soldiers bounding along in a jeep, pulling a thin-barreled fieldpiece mounted on rubber tires. The image suggests youth, vitality, mobility, and military readiness. This image is said to epitomize the 'light duty' for which America was prepared. The assumption that war, should it come, would be a series of easy victories due to America's preparedness and youthful esprit de corps. In fact, when war came, as it did, it was full of mangled bodies and terrified men huddled into stinking trenches for protection against advanced modern weaponry.

The chapter considers the difficult transition from 'light' to 'heavy' duty—the transition of American public opinion from an imaginary war to a real war. The transition was halting&mdash...