How does war impact everyone? Explain with reference to the story "Old Man at the Bridge."

In this story, which takes place during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, we see how far down the suffering caused by warfare reaches.
The narrator is a soldier trying to help get civilians across a bridge because it is clear that the fascists will soon arrive. There will be an engagement or battle, what the narrator calls "that ever mysterious event called contact."
An old man, however, is sitting down and says he cannot go any farther. When the soldier talks to him, he learns the old man has already been displaced once. He had to leave behind the animals he took care of. Now he has left animals behind again. The old man asks the solider,

But what will they do under the artillery when I was told to leave because of the artillery?

The solider has no real answer for him. The solider feels helpless, stating to the reader that "there was nothing to do about him."
The story shows how war inflicts suffering on all living creatures, no matter how innocent. The old man, who states he has no politics, is driven from his home as a war refugee—and he may die of exhaustion. His animals will likely be killed. The impact of war is here shown in the lives of ordinary people and animals who have to suffer for reasons they can't understand.

"Old Man at the Bridge" shows the devastating impact that war can have on people, especially innocent civilians. As the story opens, thousands of refugees are making their way to safety across a hastily constructed pontoon bridge. The fascists are coming, and their well-deserved reputation for brutality precedes them. With the imminent arrival of enemy forces, local people have no choice but to move on out.
The old man must also leave. But he chooses not to, sitting by the side of the dusty road in a state of debilitating torpor. The soldier tries to get the old man to get up and leave; but, although he manages to rise to his feet, the old man soon slumps back down in the dust, and there he remains.
The war has had a particularly devastating impact on the old man. This is the second time he's been required to leave town as a result of the conflict. He reluctantly had to leave his hometown of San Carlos behind, abandoning the animals he'd been caring for. This is what war does to people—it turns their whole lives upside down. More than that, it deeply traumatizes them, as we can see in the old man's constant worrying over the fate of the animals he was forced to leave behind.