A Quote from War

Slate magazine reports on this Sunday's NYT magazine cover piece in which the writer is embedded in Iraq. It notes the harrowing challenges our soldiers face:

There soldiers must "play killer, cultural anthropologist, hearts-and-minds winner and then killer again" among an ambivalent-at-best populace while fighting a mostly homegrown insurgency that uses civilians as shields. The company's 26-year-old captain confides, "I've got too many geeking out, wanting to go off the deep end and kill people," saying he "wished he could buy 20 goats and let the boys beat and burn them and let loose their rage."