Our national fondness for celebrating the physical heroism of soldiers - the apparent readiness with which they sacrifice their lives to larger causes - eclipses the far less romantic displays of moral and intellectual fortitude that also distinguish so many of them. In turning them all into heroes, we have lost a sense of the individuality they also fight to preserve.

Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point (ed. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007) - ISBN: 9781429933193