Courage is an indispensable quality in Western definitions of masculinity. Whether embodied by the mythical heroes of ancient and medieval epics, or by the self-made pioneers of modernity, whether nostalgically yearned for by the lost generations of the twentieth century or celebrated, tongue-in-cheek, by the anti-heroes of postmodernity, courage remains at the heart of what it means to be a man. The word has long been a synonym of ‘virtue’, whose etymology (from Latin, vir = ‘man’) betrays a masculine bias in the definition of excellence – hence, one might argue, of heroism at large. Inevitably, war literature is one of the privileged textual arenas in which the association between bravery and masculinity is articulated and pondered over; the existence of a manly code of honour and the meaning and possibility of male heroism are inextricably linked with our understanding of conflict and armed warfare. Particularly, but not exclusively, within a mythical, sacred ethos, war has been seen as the ultimate rite of passage, an event that separates the men from the boys, an opportunity to test oneself and prove one's valour, either in victorious survival or in the extreme sacrifice of one's life. The pervasiveness of this idea, even in the disillusioned context of the post- Vietnam era, is such that we find the celebratory sanctioning of masculinity through combat voiced by the least plausible advocates of its truth: those American men and potential draftees who, for a number of disparate reasons, did not actually fight the war. In ‘Apocalypse Continued’, a 1985 article for the New York Times Magazine, the psychotherapist Edward Tick summarises the plight of his fellow Vietnam veterans manqués: ‘[we] suffer because we chose not to perform a primary and expected rite of passage. We were never inducted, not merely into the Army, but into manhood. […] I have had some of the usual rites – marriage, educational and professional recognition. But no matter how many passages or accomplishments I garner, I never quite feel complete’.