Children are born, poets say, trailing clouds of glory. Theirs is a sheltered and blameless time, a sweet parenthesis between birth and responsibility. The young are expected to play, to learn, to feel life in every limb. They are not supposed to die. And they certainly are not supposed to kill.
Yet it happens every day in battle zones around the world. Children as young as eight fight enemies they do not know for causes they barely understand. War does not rob a child of youth so much as it reveals his innocence: ignorance of death and a nervy imperviousness to...
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