War is scary. But in war, at least it is clear to a soldier who is his friend and who is his enemy. But when a person called up to war is not on the battlefield, but in the rear, everything turns out to be more complicated. They are opposed not by enemy soldiers, but by their own superiors - stupid and cruel tyrants who perceive the privates as cannon fodder. The heroes of William Styron's story "The Long March" and the play "In a Contagious Barrack" are very different people. What unites them, in essence, is only one thing - everyone is ready to resist the hell that surrounds them...