War
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity" D. Eisenhower.
War has come again to Europe. I don't want to be writing about this. I want to be profiling flowers and posting about the weather. But this is my garden journal and right now as the worlds military superpowers play a game of chicken with a madman, it seems worth a mention. I actually want to challenge the quote above. The soldier may have willingly signed up for it, the soldier gets to carry a gun or drive a tank through it, the soldier gets to wear armor and be afforded at least some protection like a bunker or a concrete pillbox, the soldier gets to fling missiles and mortar shells from miles away and kill with impunity.
I imagine a revised version of that quote where it states "I hate war as only a refugee displaced by it's brutality, it's futility and it's stupidity can". One day you are living your life as a free person, trying to eek out an existence on this planet and the next you are fleeing for your life as the war machine comes to separate your flesh from bone. For what?
The remaining part of me, tries really hard to put myself in those 2 million plus pairs of shoes who have crowded train stations, walked on foot and through mud filled fields and across miles to escape the war that was thrust on them for no reason. Where would I go? If my peaceful little vinyard and christmas tree laden neighborhood was being carved into trenches and tanks were rolling down the old gravel roads, where would I go? If you suddenly had to pack it all up and flee where would you head? Would your conscience allow you to go to another country? Knowing that for the past 4 years here in the land of freedom and opportunity for the yearning masses, so many people frothed madly at the mouth while screaming "Build the Wall", where would you go? Would that country accept you? Or would they turn us away with barriers of concrete and barbed wire.
I'm half Ukranian, the other half is about as American as apple pie, but they too immigrated here. |
I can't do much more here than put my thoughts up and some flowers that remind me of the Ukranian flag. |
Both sides of my family made it to America as refugees. This country was founded on that principle if you make it here we will take you in and give you the opportunity to make a better life. This country will tax the living daylights out of you, but in exchange our military will protect the freedoms and principles that make it great.