How would you describe this?

Watching a documentary on WWII, Normandy Beach. They’re interviewing now-80 and 90 year old men who served as soldiers and medics there….the impact of what they’re saying, by the way they’re telling it….it’s hard to reach thorough to imagine the horror of what they must have felt when it actually happened to them when they were only 19, 20 years old.

For example, “The beaches were smeared with blood, as though someone had taken a giant paint brush to them. There were bodies stacked up like cord-wood.”

And, “The hardest part is when you’re working on a guy, and they ask if they’re going to make it and you say, ‘Oh, sure’ and then they pass as you’re working on them.”

They seem almost….blase, almost with no emotion, but I know that they aren’t. It must have been heart rendering. They were just kids….but they’re 90 now. What would the word be to describe that….distance? What is that…..?

I’m blathering. I’m not sure how to phrase my thoughts….