What war does to warriors

It seemed that nothing, absolutely nothing could stack up against the intensity of war and war's friendships. I felt only intensely empty."

Readers of Karl Marlantes's novel Matterhorn will recognize why war is so compelling for Marlantes, as well as why life after war seems so empty. For in spite of the brutality depicted in the novel, the reader cannot but become mesmerized by the beauty of battle that Mar­lantes so graphically describes. At times I had to force myself to stop reading Matter­horn because I was enthralled by the sheer horror in his account of the Vietnam War.

What It Is Like to Go to War is the sequel to Marlantes's novel. I call it a sequel even though it is not a novel. Rather, it is perhaps best understood as a commentary on the novel. Many of the events described in Matterhorn reappear in this second book, making it clear that much of the novel is a fictionalized account of Marlantes's experiences in Vietnam as a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. That takes nothing away from the novel, but it does mean that these books need to be read together. In What It Is Like to Go to War Marlantes explicitly develops the suggestion in the novel that war provides a sense of transcendence and integrity that can be found nowhere else in our lives.