The end of the war was a cause for celebration.

First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops. No other army in history has stuck to this rule, although some came close. Most great military schools of the past — Saint Cyr, West Point, Sandhurst, Colorado Springs didn’t even pretend to follow it; they accepted civilian boys, trained them, commissioned them, sent them out with no battle experience to command men... and sometimes discovered too late that this smart young ‘officer’ was a fool, a poltroon, or a hysteric.

The composition of the Provincial and District Assemblies out of representatives of the three orders (peasants, clergy, and nobles), and the censitary provisions taken for keeping the representatives of the peasants in a minority, were, as experience has shown, a useless and vexatious precaution.

There’s also the kopi auntie who remembers what your usual beverage is just after two visits, and a new “modern western food” stall that serves pretty decent fare cheaply.