...they do things differently there." Thanks for pointing out how much closer to death people were in general, and the simple practicalities of their situation, but still I think there has been a change in attitude over time, and that this is an area where our feelings really are different from JA's time. I remember reading how at the beginning of WWI, men on both sides raced to join the military because they were afraid the war would be over by Christmas, and then they'd have "missed out". There seemed to be no awareness that they were going off to hurt and be hurt, to kill and be killed. Likewise, I remember hearing a woman in a documentary who'd worked in a munitions factory as a teenager, also in WWI, and she said that during all the time she worked there, it never occurred to her to think about what the weapons she was helping to make were actually going to do. Looking back in later life, she was rather astonished at this, herself.