In fact the private was only in a blue uniform six months, getting his appendage shot off during the first day of his first battle.
It was my first Steinbeck, and it made me fall in love with his writing, his ideas, his cry for individual freedom and social justice.
We cannot choose to be made part of this world, of this bewildering place we seldom understand, but we can exert our goodwill and trust that others will do the same.