The Forever War

by Joe Haldeman

Back in the twentieth century, they had established to everybody’s satisfaction that ‘I was just following orders’ was an inadequate excuse for inhuman contact … but what can you do when the orders come from deep down in that puppet master of the unconscious?

Doctors don’t seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop.

‘Only emotionally stable people are drafted into UNEF. I know this is hard for you to accept, but heterosexuality is considered an emotional dysfunction. Relatively easy to cure.’

A good sign that an army has been around too long is that it starts getting top-heavy with officers.

A Greek phalanx must have looked pretty impressive, but it wouldn’t do too well against a single man with a flamethrower.