The Boy Soldier tells us all we need to know of war. He intrinsically knows, as all soldiers do, exactly what is about to happen. Yet the boy, and every other soldier from time immemorial, could not possibly know what shape their experience would take. How war would change them, and change under them. Horses replaced by machinery. Open trenches rendered useless by artillery. Static defenses circumvented by maneuver warfare. The world’s sole superpower maimed one man at a time by homemade bombs. This is war: universal and unique. This is Dunsinane.