Slaughterhouse-five 1

"'You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and JohnWayne or some of those other glamorous, war- loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by baies like the babies upstairs." pg 14

Vonnegut quickly makes it clear that this is not your typical war novel through Mrs. O'Hare's dialogue. She wants the book to be candid instead of glamorous. However, what I find interesting is that Vonnegut hasn't even written about Dresden yet, or even the war. The war obviously affected the men who served and their families, like Mrs. O'Hare, but I'm curious to know what exactly happened to make her so skeptical. It may just be her mother's intuition to hate violence for her children's sake. The war robbed these men of much of their innocence. The reference to babies comes again later when the men are actually prisoners of war. Even other soldiers realize how young fellow soldiers are. Vonnegut is painting a very young and almost ironic picture of war. These men are so young. How could they even know what they're fighting for? ANd how can you write a book about a war you don't understand?