I thought of the army recruit William had described to me that summer, the one so easily indoctrinated that he would run into a wall over and over until he knocked himself out. And when he regained consciousness, his superiors would pin a medal to his shirt and he’d wear it with great pride, or maybe frame it and put it on the mantel, and never know that thousands of other guys had the very same medal, for doing the exact same thing, but not one of them had ever succeeded in knocking down that wall.
