"“Besides, when you’re smoking you can’t smell the goddamn war so much.” You can’t smell the goddamn war so much. Dowling wouldn’t have put it that way, which didn’t mean the kid was wrong. Even here in Washington, well back of the line, you noted whiffs of that smell. Dowling didn’t know what all went into it. Among the pieces, though, were unburied corpses, unwashed men, and uncovered latrine trenches. Cordite and smoke were two other constants. The smell had a sharper note in this war, for exhaust fumes had largely ousted the barnyard aroma of horses. And there was one other stink that never went away. It blew out of the War Department. With luck, it blew out of the War Department on the other side, too. And it usually did, for most wars went on for a long, long time. No, there was no escaping the all-invasive, all-pervasive reek of stupidity."
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Fantasy authorsScience fiction authors from the United StatesHistorical novelistsJews from the United StatesPeople from Los Angeles
Original Language: English
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Sources
Chapter 3 (p. 81)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove
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Harry Turtledove
writer, novelist, historian
1949 · United States
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