Athens, October 28, 1940. On that day, the streets were filled with reservists. Those from the classes of 1929 and beyond rushed into the cities looking for announcements of mobilization at the police stations. After learning their destination and the time frame they had to report, they ran to the train stations, besieging the trains that departed incessantly, packed tightly with their human cargo, towards Larissa or Patras.

The reservists were a strange thing. Still citizens, workers, craftsmen, technicians, accountants, teachers, waiters, porters, public servants, artists, whatever a society of the twentieth century assigns to people as productive and social attributes. But they were also, at the same time, warriors.

(. . .) They had never killed anyone in their lives; for the overwhelming majority, the thought of another's death by their own hand had never crossed their minds. However, they were hastily leaving behind the world they had known up to that point, to catch up with another, in which their main concern would be to kill - along with the possibility of being killed.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]