A Rumor of War

p. 21

Caputo has had Marine training and it has altered the way he looks at the earth. “A year earlier I would have seen the rolling Virginia countryside through the eyes of an English major who enjoyed reading the Romantic poets. Now I had the clearer, more pragmatic vision of an infantry officer. Landscape was no longer scenery to me, it was terrain, and I judged it for tactical rather than for aesthetic value. Having been drilled constantly to look for concealment and cover, I could see dips and folds in a stretch of ground that would have appeared utterly flat to a civilian. If I saw a hill–‘high ground’–I automatically began planning how to attack or defend it . . . .”