What is it like to be in the Infantry?
Dig a hole in your back garden while it is raining. Sit in the hole while the water climbs up round your ankles. Pour cold mud down your shirt collar. Sit there for forty-eight hours, and, so there is no danger of your dozing off, imagine that a guy is sneaking round waiting for a chance to club you on the head, cut your throat or set your house on fire. Get out of the hole, fill a suitcase full of rocks, pick it up, put a shotgun in your other hand, and walk down the muddiest road you can find. Fall flat on your face every few minutes, as you imagine big meteors streaking down to sock you … Snoop around until you find a bull. Try to figure a way to sneak around him without letting him see you. When he does see you, run like hell all the way back to your hole in the back yard, drop the suitcase and shotgun, and get in. If you repeat this performance every three days for several months you may begin to understand why an infantryman gets out of breath.
