Observe the sons of Ulster marching towards the Somme Book

Tonight I watched the play, and it was powerful. About love and morality, faith and friendship - the things that pull us through the worst of it all, how we are changed by all of it. I've been skimming different sections of the book to relive the strength of the play ever since the play let out - in fact, in the intermission I was reading the opening bits, to hear them again in my mind. The actors did a brilliant job in the show, a moving performance all around.

I even went in and willingly underlined a couple of passages that I found particularly moving. I don't think I have ever, under my own free will and initiative, underlined a book. Not even in the pencil I did it in tonight.

ELDER PYPER: I will not talk, I will not listen to you. Invention gives that slaughter shape. That scale of horror has no shape, as you in your darkness have no shape. Your actions that day were not, they are not acceptable. You have no right to excuse that suffering, parading it for the benefit of others.

ELDER PYPER: Those I belonged to, those I have not forgotten, the irreplaceable ones, they kept their nerve, and they died. I survived. No, survival was not my lot. Darkness, for eternity, is not survival.

(P.S. JULIE!! It was either at the quote of Crawford or of Moore/Millen below which made me think of the Auxiliary Animorphs - yes, specifically of them in the middle of watching this play. Hrm, I am inclined to think it was more Moore/Millen where I thought it...)

CRAWFORD: What am I? I'll tell you. I'm a soldier that risks his neck for no cause other than the men he's fighting with. I've seen enough to see through empires and kings and countries. I know the only side worth supporting is your own sweet self. I'll support you because if it comes to the crunch I hope you'll support me. That's all I know. That's all I feel.

MCILWAINE: The whole of Ulster will be lost. We're not making a sacrifice. Jesus, you've seen this war. We are the sacrifice.

MOORE: Who leads you?
MILLEN: Top brass. I do as I'm told. I make no complaints. If they order me to put my hand in the fire, for the sake of what I believe in, I'd do it willingly. You have to do that as well, Moore. That's the only way you'll come back alive.

PYPER: Dance.