The experience of war

John Keegan was an English military historian. The book of his that I first read was The Face of Battle (1976) about the experience of combat, and perhaps especially how that experience for the individual soldier hasn't changed much over time even as technology has. I loaned that book to a colleague—a Korean War combat veteran—who told me it was a very good description of his experience. Keegan later wrote the scripts for a series titled "Soldiers: A History of Men in Battle" (1985) narrated by Frederick Forsythe. It doesn't seem to be available on DVD but I discovered that much of it can be found on YouTube. Last night I watched the first episode, titled, like the book, "The Face of Battle."

I have no personal combat experience and can claim nothing beyond book knowledge. I did use episode one of the series with some confidence as an introduction to a unit on the military in an elective I once taught.

Most of "Soldiers A History of Men in Battle" can be watched on YouTube.