grgr4 Proof of the pudding (was Re: GRGR(4): Episode 12

[JBFRAME at aol.com]

Siegfried Sasoon was an officer in the British Army in the Great War.  He 
wrote about his experiences in _Memoirs of an Infantry Officer_.  I have a 
copy, published in New York by Coward-McCann, Inc.,1930.  I believe it is now 
out of print, which is unfortunate because it is one of the great anti-war 
documents of the 20th century.  
Sasoon was wounded late in the war and was sent to hospital in England.  When 
he realized that after healing he would be sent back to the front, he began 
to think about things and came to the conclusion that the war was a stupid 
waste of lives and a conspiracy of the rich & powerful to increase their 
wealth & power at the expense of the poor.  When he expressed these thoughts 
he expected to be court-martialed & jailed.  Instead, he was sent back to a 
hospital as a psychiatric patient.  

Pudding would have been part of the army faction that would agree that any 
officer who would come to such conclusions must necessarily be mad.

jbf