A Great Yarn

One of the soldiers in our battalion was recently killed from an IED blast. He had a 9 year old daughter. My own daughter told me yesterday that one of her classmate's father was injured in a blast in Iraq and had to relearn speech and movement. She said, "but even though his brain wasn't working right he still remembered his son." Yesterday her classmate left early to go to Niagara Falls with his family to celebrate his father being better.

Oh please don't let these little examples pass you by as we are bombarded by timetables and analysis and budget talks and all that other stuff. I think it's so easy for us to forget the details of the picture when we don't have a loved one caught up in these wars. It's natural. We have no concrete idea here how war looks up close. But there are children dying in these wars,too, and civilians. Please look, and please remember.

There is no such thing as a good war.

I'm not enough of a pacifist to believe that military action is never necessary. But it's never glorious or good.

There is no such thing as a good war.

And I hope that if we all remember this, despite all the yelling and the fear mongering and the flag waving, we'll all be more careful. We'll insist that our governments be more careful.

I think we could all stand to be more thoughtful and careful with each other.