On the Bitterness of a Soldier

"There is a core of anger in the soul of almost every veteran, and we are justified in calling it bitterness, but the bitterness of one man is not the same thing as the bitterness of another. In one man it becomes a consuming flame that sears his soul and burns his body. In another it is barely traceable. It leads one man to outbursts of temper, another to social radicalism, a third to excesses of conservatism. (21)"

~Willard Waller, a post WW1 sociologist, from Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming by Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D.