"War loses a great deal of romance after a soldier has seen his first battle. I have a more vivid recollection of the first than the last one I was in. 

It is a classical maxim that it is sweet and becoming to die for one's country; but whoever has seen the horrors of a battle-field feels that it is far sweeter to live for it."
from Mosby's War Reminiscences by John S. Mosby