Books: Soldiers Will Write

WE SHALL MARCH AGAIN (374 pp.)—Gerhard Kramer—Putnam ($3.75).

One of the occupational hazards of war, perhaps even greater than boredom, danger or fear, is the compulsion to write novels about it. Victors are apt to be spoilsports who decide that victory was less important than the fractures suffered by their fragile psyches (The Naked and the Dead, From Here to Eternity). The losers wryly argue that they were pushed around in a brawl they never made (All Quiet on the Western Front). As two-time losers, Germans have become experts in the blues of defeat. The latest sample to reach the U.S. is...