Matterhorn

by Karl Marlantes

Something had changed. People he loved were going to die to give meaning and life to what he’d always thought of as meaningless words in a dead language.

He was frightened beyond any fear he had ever known. But this brilliant and intense fear, this terrible here and now, combined with the crucial significance of every movement of his body, pushed him over a barrier whose existence he had not known about until this moment. He gave himself over completely to the god of war within him.

Dying this way was a better way to die because living this way was a better way to live.