(From the rear inside flap of the dust jacket):

 

As a soldier returning home after fighting in the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, Jon Sebba's eyes were opened to the pain from destruction and loss which accompany every war, the anguish of orphans and widows, and the angry seeds of the next conflict.  Those who profit in the short-run from war use the phrase "collateral damage."  Jon writes poems about that damage from the perspective of the soldier, the eyewitness.  He writes about battle scenes for his fellow soldiers who can't.  He describes the front lines for those of us at home who aren't there.  He writes to encourage other soldiers to talk, and to urge all readers to reject the cost of war.

 

Ernest Hemingway wrote, Never think that war ... is not a crime.  Ask the infantry and ask the dead.

 

These poems are what they might answer.