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Have you thanked a soldier today? Since today is Remembrance Day/Veterans Day/Armistace Day/etc I'm going to break with my usual format. Coming from a military family, and having spent time in the armed services myself, Remembrance Day is a special time for me. (In the services, it's considered one of the most important days of the year.) At the time of my own military service, women were barred from combat operations duty, so I never truly faced the prospect of being ordered to kill -- and perhaps to die -- for my country (even if Canada had been at war at the time, which we weren't). But even so, the awareness was always there, in the background: this is ultimately about death and destruction. It may have been death and destruction in the cause of freedom -- but we all knew this was no game. It's been almost a century since the conclusion of "the war to end all wars", and the date in history that is being commemorated today - and where are we now? Well, after WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, Afganistan, Kuwait, the Middle East, .... I think it's pretty safe to say we're not doing so well. But what I find most troubling isn't the record of international conflict that marred the twentieth century. It's the response of our young people when the fighting breaks out. We who have served in the military know that war is no picnic, whether we've spent any time on the front lines or not. It's serious -- you might even say "deadly serious". To listen to the young men talking, though, you'd think it's some kind of grand adventure. And that attitude scares the bejeepers out of me. Shortly after the war in Kuwait started, I was coming home from work on the bus one day when I overheard a group of teenage boys discussing how they could lie about their ages so they could join the military and go fight. Fortunately for them, that's not so easy anymore; one side effect of the high-tech nature of modern warfare is that many military organizations are much less likely to accept just anyone into their ranks. (Unlike 60 years ago when anyone who had two arms, two legs, and a penis was liable to find himself trudging through the mud with a rifle in his hand... 60 years ago, those boys would probably have succeeded.) I've often thought that the best and most effective way to put an end to war is to take the heads of state from the warring nations, lock them in a room, and let them fight it out between themelves. The last one standing "wins the war". No collateral damage; minimal casualties; and the people getting hurt are the same people who thought the war was a good idea in the first place. (And who knows: if these people had to put their own butts on the line, maybe they'd be more motivated to work toward a less violent solution...) But the eagerness to fight, to kill or be killed, that I saw in the faces of those young men makes me wonder about that.... Claim your power, submissive. You cannot give away that which you do not possess. |
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BG as always an excellent blog, I was raised in a military family as well and went as far as applying to Royal Roads in Victoria but sadly the civilian money swayed me. My father and mother were both in the Canadian military, my father a 30 year career man. I myself was born in Europe due to his military service. It angers me when I hear people say those things about the military but what frustrates me more is I will defend their rights to protest and say those things because that is all part of freedom and democracy. They don't get it, you don't see protests in countries like Iran or Jordan or even places like India because the protestors would be dealt with harshly. This year in London England some muslim protestors burned a giant poppy and chanted "British soldiers will burn in hell" during the Rembrance Day ceremonies. They are so ignorant they don't realize the poppy has nothing to do with war and Remembrance Day is not about war. BG again great blog and freedom is something we will always have to fight for. Evil will always flourish when Good men do nothing
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