Intro

"Once you get out of training, you're funneled into what's called the pipeline. You become a number while you're traveling and you get spewed out somewhere the other end. You land, look for signs of war; a bullet scar in a wall, a bombed out building. You don't have to look very hard. You see a lot of poverty. Kids starving. When you get on the trucks, after the ship and the train, you know the pipeline is carrying you further toward the front. You're going to be a combat infantryman. The tip of the spear. You don't know what it will be like or what will happen. You wonder whether you are going to get killed."