Seen from a distance, our trench looked to me like the slightly parted lips of an immense woman's sex. A woman, open, offering herself to war, to the bombshells, and to us, the soldiers.
-- Alfa (chapter 2)

Importance: Here, Alfa makes a profoundly unflattering comparison between a woman's sexual organ and the trenches of war. The trenches are dark, dirty, bloody, and filled with countless young men whose lives are always and everywhere at risk. A woman's real sexual organ, seen rightly through the eyes of a loving man, is warm, soft, inviting, and even beautiful. To make this comparison so early in the novel is to establish a tragic characteristic of Alfa's: he is incapable of love. As the story progresses, Alfa must drop these comparisons and associations and learn again to appreciate women and love on their own terms, not only in the shadow of death and despair.

They want someone to...
-- Alfa (chapter 7)