War is a terrible buisness, even more so I suppose when it sounds like you must mistrust almost everyone. It must have been terribly lonely...

[And loneliness he can understand, though his had come more from an inability to trust himself more than a distrust of others.]

Pain does have that effect on you. You can withstand it for a time, it is true, but not forever... it brings out the animal part of you. For it is the only way you have to protect yourself. To let your mind scurry away into some deep dark corner of yourself while all... that is happening to you.