Almost without exception, the lasting impression of survivors of combat at sea, land and air from Canada and the British Commonwealth, United States, Soviet Union, Germany, France and Italy I've talked to is "the waste, the waste."

Best writing on this comes from the American writer, soldier, educator Paul Fussell, whom I interviewed several times, and whom Wikipedia refers as exposing the gap between myth and reality of war, "refusing to disguise or elevate it."