Reflection on War

"War! (Good God y'all!) What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"*

Does war serve any Earthly purpose?

We're all living in the same house for damn sure!! When a nation goes to war, it is burning down another room in the global house.

One thing waging wars does, it spares us having to focus on what is broken in the human psyche. The reason war is a viable option is because somewhere in our genetic blueprint we have given up on ourselves, on our species. With war as our default, we must hate ourselves, because what we do when we fight a war is loathsome, monstrous. Ask any retired general after he's had a few drinks.

"The rocket's red glare and bombs bursting in air / Gave proof to the night that our flag was still there." . . . Because soldiers kept stepping in to hold it up and by dawn it was being supported by a pile of the dead . . . True or false? It's true enough for me. The truth is, we have never given peace a chance!

All my life I have contained, somewhere in my brain, my heart and my gut, a loathing for war and everything associated with war.

I have tried to vent my loathing over the years, have spent uncountable hours praying for peace, not just the peace of not waging wars, but the forever-peace of a golden age, when the human race turns the corner on its journey to somewhere.

Both of my grandfathers served in the army during WW1, and ultimately, I believe, their lives were ruined by it. You know the old story - "They never talked about it". But my grandfather whispered about it through his sad eyes. It sucked the joy-potential out of him, whose face resembled that of an old chief.

A couple of years ago my sister and brother and I went through a storage unit where we were keeping all the stuff our parents left behind. In one box we found my mother's father's WW1 uniform. Wool, coarse khaki, with a few moth-eaten spots. I spoke for the uniform. I was attracted to it like a moth to a candle. I hated it, but I was fascinated.

I tried to respect it, as an artifact of family history, but that didn't last long. It was so small! My grandfather died when I was 10 or 11. He always looked sad or angry to me and he was always a little gruff, but gentle. But what I was getting from this uniform was that it was worn by a smallish, trim man, who was carrying no extra weight on him. He was an athlete, all muscle at 18.

I kept the uniform in a plastic garment bag, as an heirloom, but it didn't take long for me to realize that it was not something I wanted to preserve, but what the hell was I to do with it? My grandfather was a nurse during WW1. I can't begin to imagine what he experienced while wearing that uniform. I entertained thoughts of burning it. One day I decided to let it go, along with a quirky Victorian era wall-clock and a box of odds and ends. I drove south in my old suby, heading for a town where there were a few antique dealers. The first place I tried was run by an old (my age), heavyset guy with a limp who took everything off my hands for 30 bucks. Afterwards I felt bad that I hadn't just given it to him. Driving home, I felt a mix of emotions, but mostly relief. I was sure that Grandpa would have approved. His daughter, his youngest, my mother raised me as a pacifist after all.

One more story to illustrate my relationship to war. When I was around 15, three years before I registered as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam draft, my father bought a house on the Cape and, when it looked like we were moving, I wrote a letter about my feelings about Vietnam that I stuffed into the used razor slot in the back of the medicine cabinet, trusting that some day, someone would be demolishing or remodeling the house and would find my letter. It was a very passionate, angry letter. I wish I could get my hands on that letter that I wrote and essentially mailed to the future, which is now. The thing is, my feelings haven't changed. That uniform, so to speak, still fits me.

I repeat: