if+met+where+any+bar+is

In this second to last line of Thomas Hardy's //The Man He Killed// Hardy points out the strangness of war. In this line he explains how perplexing the thought of killing someone in war is when if you had met that person at any other place you could have "treated them," or "help to half a crown." Just like in the poem where it is said that in the bar he really didn't kill his foe for any reason, people in war don't kill for a legitamite reason. This line is paramount to the poem because it explains the spirit of the poem which is the bizarreness of war.