Here is a scene that won’t be part of Ken Burns’ new series about World War II on PBS this week.

In 1945, a 20-year-old foot soldier arrives at General Patton’s Third Army in France. Before being sent to a rifle company, he is assigned to stay up every night and on the battalion’s only typewriter, which is not available during the day, copy officers’ notes about suspected SIWs, Self-Inflicted Wounds.

Night after night, under a Coleman lantern hissing yellow light with sounds of battle in the background, he taps out stories in quadruplicate about young men who have maimed themselves out of fear and fatigue, offering up some body part to save the rest — shooting an arm or leg, slashing a thigh, dislocating a shoulder or wrenching a knee in some improbable fall.

Fighting a war, the stories reveal, is like everything else that is important in life, a matter of showing up, doing what has to be done and not running away, and there is a thin line between those who can do it and those who can’t.

Later on and further away, there will be talk of heroes and greatest generations and abstractions about defending ideals. For those who fight wars, it’s as simple as being there and staying.

The more complicated questions have to be answered by those who send and keep them there.

Cross-posted from my blog.