honor and glory , to be sure , '' he says , and i look into his eyes and i know that he is thinking of what he has seen in the way of war-the mud , the filth , the hunger , the burning towns , the ravaged women , the murdered children , the battles where men fall rank upon rank before the merciless cannons like wheat before a scythe , and , finally , after it 's all over and the butcher 's bill is added up , the sickening sweet stink of the honored dead as their bodies lie rotting on the battlefield .