World Unwar: Part 1

“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.”-John F. Kennedy.

Greensboro, North Carolina – In the year of our Lord 1914, World War I was begun by the free and un-free peoples of a planet called earth. They thought that it would forever end war. They thought that their actions, their bloodletting, their killing, their pounding each other until little but bloody pulp was left would help things. In Germany, of all young men who were between twenty and thirty, fifty percent were dead when it was over.

It smashed up thousands of acres of good farming land. Left massive craters and miles of trenches. Young men were blown into pieces so small they could not be found. Entire armies walked over the tops of trenches, almost every single one not coming back.

But the wars did not end. The began again in World War II. Again the world went to war with itself. Again big machines and men with guns pounded each other until all that was left was a bloody mess. This time the free peoples won, but they won a continent of rubble.

Since then, the wars have continued. Thousands of young men and women dying in different nation’s disagreements. In Syria today a civil war continues, in which, so far, we are otld over a 100,000 people have died. Many of the, civilians. No matter who is right or wrong, in the end, when all of the blood dries, when all of the ground settles over the graves, it is neither the good nor the bad that win, it is war.

There is nothing to cheer about when it is over. When those that survived the horror of war come home, the only glory is in the mind. Even in the “golden age” if knighthood, people were still dying. Behind those visors and shields, behind those war cries, were humans. When the colonials of the Napoleonic wars lined up, and marched at each other in their massive chess games gone real, they were still killing real people. Behind the explosions, behind the terror, behind the madness, behind the propaganda, there are people with lives, with families, people who were once children. They are people, and the human race is too small, and it’s mission too great, to lose even one of its members.

Andrew C. Abbott