I Had Seen Castles by Cynthia Rylant

The bombs that dropped on Hawaii sent a shock wave straight into the outraged soul of every man in American, and like Neanderthals, we had a primitive, fearless, screaming desire to kill.

After the Nazis decimated our pitiful army a few times with their monstrous panzer tanks and eighty-millimeter guns, it occurred to us that we were--as we had known from the start, but not until now so cruelly--in very serious trouble.

In the window of the barbershop a few blocks from our house was a crudely lettered sign that read, No Yellow Bellies, Skunks, or COs Allowed, and that sums up pretty well the sentiment of most people toward any able-bodied young men who had no stomach for killing.