An Army at Dawn: The War in Africa, 1942-1943

by Rick Atkinson

Some 240 stones are inscribed with thirteen of the saddest words in our language: “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.”

The dead resist such intimacy. The closer we try to approach, the farther they draw back, like rainbows or mirages. They have outsoared the shadow of our night, to reside in the wild uplands of the past. History can take us there, almost.

For among mortal powers, only imagination can bring back the dead.

“The last war was a war to end war. This war’s to start ’em up again,”