This is a very personal recollection that has haunted me for years, a moment when I was in high school that left such a deep impression when I read something that became one of the core reasons a few years later that would drive me to become a conscientious objector when I registered for the Selective Service.
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, now in the public domain, was one of the books I happened to pick up in the school library. I don't think it was chosen for any particular reason except we were obliged to read a certain number of books and submit book reports as part of the English curriculum, and this book just happened to get my attention. Stories about war and such have always been a ready source of entertainment for literature, movies and such, so it probably had a flashy cover. In my case the important part was a line from Chapter Four that stuck in my memory at the time and haunted me for the rest of my life. "I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in the war."
This is part of the text of Chapter Four
