I love any book about the Civil War. PLUS this is the book that inspired Joss Whedon to create the show Firefly (and the movie made from the series after its cancellation, Serenity). Needless to say, I dove into it with such enthusiastic intent.
This book was difficult for me to get into, honestly. The battle of this book is Gettysburg. Bloody, desperate, horrific. I wanted something fluffier, something less... real, I guess. It bothered me that these were based on real people, who lived and breathed and loved and died. I can't stand anyone suffering of any kind in anyone around me, so to think of the passion and belief these people had to carry through the battle to just make it through the day.
My extremely limited experience with military life has shown me the depth of the connection between the soldiers and officers who go through battles together... it's intense. I am seriously in awe of the level of emotional commitment these people have for each other. I am so apolitical, mostly because I can't make myself sit down and form concrete, objective opinions about things that affect people so deeply. That's what I took away. The pointlessness and sadness and my desire to want to make people not have to go through this. I value so much of the broken and cracked and painful in life but I've never been able to reconcile war into any of my philosophy. Some people love it... they really do. They come away tormented and scarred... and part of them wants to go back, wants the adrenaline. It's insane to read this, know people who've served and try to think about it all together.
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