"Quiet is easy to achieve," Dick repeatedly said, "but true peace must come from within." That was where the farm came in, a quiet piece of Pennsylvania where he could forget about the war. Without that refuge, Dick's thoughts always returned to the war, those horrendous battles, those fallen comrades, those lucky ones who suffered the million-dollar wound and returned to the States while the survivors went on.
He approached the subject of what he referred to as "flashes from the past" only after we had known each other for five years. He turned to me once, changing the subject that we had been discussing, and said, "Don't you think it's strange that fifty-eight years after the war, I can't get these images out of my mind?"
"Not at all, Dick. Every soldier bears the emotional scars of combat long after the war ends. War is only attractive to those who know nothing about it. I remember how one of the war's correspondents, I think it was Ernie Pyle, but I'm not sure, said at war's end, 'All we can do is fumble and try once more- try out of the memory of our anguish- and be as tolerant we can.'"
