The Red Badge of Courage was written a little over a hundred years ago, but it still applies to issues today. It is a book that, due to its "general" feeling on particular aspects, has not become excessively "outdated." There is no sense that the story in the book belongs only in the 1800s. It is simply most comfortable there.

One of the issues that begs to be looked at in Crane’s work is whether his view of the common man, his representation, holds up today. As has already been discussed and validated by the "experts," Henry Fleming was obviously supposed to be the "every-man." But has the so-called "every-man" changed? At the time of the Civil War, many people had never traveled far beyond their home, and knew little about many of the other states, much less the world. The book itself hints that Henry has rarely, if ever, been away. He seems like the common man in many ways. It seems Henry’s ignorance, his ideas of glory, his wishes to get somewhere, are the same as those of almost all people today. Crane’s man is "The symbol of all untried men" (Conrad 132). Yet, today even the poorest individuals have access to the news and goings-on in the world. At first, this would seem to destroy Henry’s ignorance as representative of the common man.

However, while selective elements of the common man might have changed over time, Crane's work is as accurate today as when it was written in depicting the common man and his "reality of war." Crane’s book was one of the first to see war in this light, which is important for several reasons. First, even in today’s world in which much of war is fought by machines and robots, the targets are still often human, and the consequences are just as gruesome. More importantly, Crane’s war shows something that is still true today: the common, average man is the one who really fights the wars. Crane’s book was one of the first to not have either upper ranking people or men of superhuman courage fighting the battles. Alfred Kazin puts it perfectly:

This is certainly true in the Red Badge in which the young men fight the battle. There is no glory to be found in the death of the "tall soldier," nor that of the "tattered soldier," who is abandoned by his friend just as he starts to die. The common men do not always fight the war for the same reason; sometimes it is because they feel oppressed and they wish to free themselves, often it is because the un-common men tell them to fight. There was the Civil War in which many privates fought for different causes than their leaders, such as many Irish immigrants. They didn't fight to free the slaves, as that only hurt their chances of getting a job, nor did they fight for glory, but many fought so the country they recently came to live in would hold together long enough for them to live in it. Then there is WWII - the classic image of a common man fight, and even today, in the mechanized military, it is often those who are in the lower/middle class that make up the majority who decide to serve, who end up truly fighting. In the Red Badge itself one can occasionally see hints of the common man fighting a war for a higher person whose goals he does not know. "Yank," the other [a confederate soldier] had informed him, ‘yer a right dum good feller.’ This sentiment, floating to him upon the still air, had made him temporarily regret war" (Crane 17). Further, even in the relatively recent conflict of Vietnam, social class was perceived to be an important factor in determining who fought the war. Albert Marrin, in his book America and Vietnam: The Elephant and the Tiger, states, "Army records show that men with college degrees had a 42 percent chance of going to Vietnam, high school graduates a 64 percent chance, and high school dropouts a 70 percent chance. If they did go to Vietnam most college graduates fought from behind office desks" (190). Clearly, as he points out, "it [the system] was unfair, in that it allowed the well-to-do to escape while poor people, minorities, and the uneducated bore the brunt of the war" (190).

We owe a large debt to Stephen Crane for making our view of war more realistic. While he was far from alone in eventually shaping our views, which are still being formed today, he can at least be said to have instilled our underlying view today. Yet, as Chowder notes, "It is a mistake to see The Red Badge as being simply antiwar. Later Crane would write, "war is neither magnificent nor squalid; it is simply life" (111). Crane did not think there was no reason for war. But, in the end, we should take his hints that perhaps we should at least fight for something worthwhile.