"I was assigned to a medical unit and was part of a group receiving men returning from theater headed to hospital care, many forever maimed with life-altering wounds. It made a strong impression because wounded men and body bags come back to home districts, not Washington, D.C., and accordingly, there is no more sacred vote than those surrounding war where life hangs in the balance."

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I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

— Marge Piercy