The futility and tragedy of war

Two Vietnamese soldiers talking in 1976 after the war about meeting the dead in their dreams:

" 'Do you speak to them?'
'Yes, but...well, differently. The way you speak in hell. There are no sounds, no words. It's hard to describe. It's like when you're dreaming - you know what I mean.'
'You can't actually do anything to help each other?' asked Kien. 'Do you talk about interesting things?'
'Not very. Just sad and pitiful things, really. Under the ground in the grave human beings aren't the same. You can look at each other, understand each other, but you can't do anything for each other.'
'If we found a way to tell them news of a victory would they be happier?' Kien asked.
'Come on! Even if we could, what would be the point? People in hell don't give a damn about wars. They don't remember killing. Killing is a career for the living, not the dead.'
'Still, wouldn't peacetime be an ideal moment for the resurrection of all the dead?'
'What? Peace? Damn it, peace is a tree that thrives only on the blood and bone of fallen comrades. The ones left behind in the Screaming Soul battlegrounds were the most honoruable peole. Without them there would be no peace,' the driver replied.

'That's a rotten way to look at it. There are so many good people, so many yet to be born, so many survivors now trying to live decent lives. Otherwise it's not been worth it. I mean, what's peace for? Or what's fighting for?' Kien asked.
'Okay, I'll grant you we have to have hope. But we don't even know if the next generation will get a chance to grow up, or if they do, how they'll grow up. We do know that many good people have been killed. Those of us who survived have all been trying to make something of ourselves, but not succeeding.' "

(From Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War, quoted from the excerpt appearing as 'The Jungle of Screaming Souls' in War Stories (eds. Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen, pp. 354-55.)