Although large numbers of men and women volunteer for military service, astoundingly few soldiers actually achieve their dream of going to war and emerging as heroes. When not battling for survival in its purest sense, military service and war are for many soldiers a tedious period of their lives that does not compare to the colorful images of action and adventure the recruiter promised them. Desertion was always a possibility for men who found army life intolerable. Yet each new generation walks into the recruiter’s office with the same ignorance of war’s reality only to discover, when reality strikes, the terrible price they have to pay for believing the myth of war.

This book examines military service as 90 percent boredom and 10 percent action; the search for the “real” army while discovering the cost of war; and climbing the “mountains of life” in search of the “Holy Grail.” The material in this book is excerpted from For God, Gold, and Glory: A History of Military Service and Man’s Search for Power, Wealth, and Adventure, also by Martina Sprague. The full series comprises the following books:

1. The Forces of War: Patriotism, Tradition, and Revenge

2. The Financial Incentives of War: Poverty Draft, Mercenaries, and Volunteers in Foreign Armies

3. The Propaganda of War: Personal Transformation and the Search for Adventure

4. The Glory of War: The Way to Historical Immortality

5. The Reality of War: Boredom, Disillusion, and Desertion