what the war was for

We might collectively resent such factitious linkages as the one that strikes me now, as I read Geoff Dyer's THE MISSING OF THE SOMME and breeze away a fabulous summer afternoon in the high hills overlooking the lake, but it is true that following wars in which millions and millions of deaths occur, the consequent massive amnesia takes two forms: a blanding of the sharp appreciation of life (domestication, materialism, family-life: let us suggest this for 99% of the population) and some form of bohemian reformation (usually associated with the arts: for the rest).

From Verdun:

yielding Screamin' Jay Hawkins: you may hear him here