So goes death...

Before Billy gets high jacked by the Tralfamadores, he goes back to the time when some German soldiers kidnapped him. He tells that at the moment he and Weary were caught they were having an argument, and that the German soldiers took everything from them. After that, they had to walk barefoot, until they reached a cottage, where they stayed for a few days and after they had to walk again. They reached a train station, where the many prisoners where sorted into military range and country of origin. During the description of his journey, Billy constantly mentions dead men, or death in general.

I couldn´t help noticing that there was a pattern in the use of “so it goes.” After Billy mentions death, it is always followed by “so it goes.”

•    “They were irregulars, armed and clothed fragmentarily with junk taken from real soldiers who were newly dead. So it goes.” (pg. 52)
•       “His bandy legs were thrust into golden cavalry boots which he had taken from a dead Hungarian colonel on the Russian front. So it goes.” (pg. 53)
•       “Now they were dying in the snow, feeling nothing, turning the snow to the color of raspberry sherbet. So it goes.” (pg 54)
•       “There was a battle there. People were dying there. So it goes.” (pg. 65)
•       “The Germans carried the corpse out. The corpse was Wild Bob. "So it goes." (pg. 69)

I know that Billy Pilgrim is Kurt Vonnegut: the author did go to the Second World War, but are all the events that occur in the book true? Is the use of “so it goes,” unique to Vonnegut himself, or Billy Pilgrim the character, and why does this happen? Maybe Billy or Vonnegut was affected by the many deaths present and that he had to presence in the world war. The use of “so it goes” may be a sign of respect towards the dead, or it could also show that Billy feels nothing towards death: it happens, and “so it goes.”