Whether you believe in the rightness of wrongness of war, you must understand it's toll in human terms.
War means killing, war means death, to soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians. Each death has a ripple effect because that someone was a son or daughter, brother or sister, husband or wife, father or mother, and that death left a hole in a family that impacts the lives of those family members for generations.
Recently I visited battlefields in Holland and France where men fought and died, believing in their cause or following orders, acting with courage or out of fear. Civilian families were destroyed in their farms and villages. As I said then, war creates heroes, but war is hell. Soldiers will do what they are sent to do and make the ultimate sacrifice to do it. We must be very careful of what we ask them to do.
With each war we hope it will be the last. Yet we have potential leaders who tell us that there will be other wars. Why must there be? Europe fought on their homeland. They are not so anxious for more war. Are they wiser for their suffering? Must whole generations be lost to guns and bombs because of a tyrant? Isn't it time to find a new way?
We can remember our war dead best by putting an end to those rows of white crosses. We can find a new way. We must.
men fight over land and power over each other, so wars will continue till the end of time unfortunately. i do appreciate the bravery of our veterans but feel saddened by continuing wars that don't solve anything.
ReplyDeleteOh Linda, I agree with you completely, of course. If the leaders were directly impacted I wonder if there would be quite so many wars. If presidents and prime ministers and dictators knew their own children would be sacrificed on the battlefields, I wonder if there would be quite so many wars.
ReplyDeleteLin, I hope you're wrong, I hope we can change, and all the more reason to vote for women!
ReplyDeleteMusings, for an example of how making it personal changes minds, but often too late, watch PBS's Masterpiece Clasics "My Son Jack". It's heart wrenching but pertinent.
well Linda I wish it would be different but there are too many men in power not that i think women would do it differently because by the time they have worked their way up to be real politicians i think they have lost much of their womanly qualities to compete with men in the game.
ReplyDelete