Meagan (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dryad_song) wrote,@ 2008-11-11 11:11:00 |
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Rememberance Day
In 1914, on Christmas, soldiers on both sides of the battle stopped fighting. This wasn’t a planned thing and it was quite in defiance of all orders. But they lit candles and played football and celebrated as though they weren’t in the middle of killing each other. Young men who were relieved to have a break from their fighting in the same way that kids in their first year of university are relieved to have midterms over and done with. Children.
I can’t really get my head around kids younger than my littlest brother being handed guns and sent off to bear the psychological weight of killing other people.
Today, those kids my youngest brother’s age can play war games on a computer and consider it fun. I don’t begrudge them that, although I will never understand why war-based computer games are so appealing. But today, it is important for everyone to note that you can play games where you pretend you’re fighting a war because you are lucky to be born in this time, in this part of the world, and in this incarnation of history where the actual fighting to give you that right has been done and was successful.
It isn’t good to dwell on the past and on the horrors that people can cause when they forget the fundamental truth that other people are just as real and as important and as beloved as they are, but it is necessary to never forget.
In 1914, on Christmas, soldiers on both sides of the battle stopped fighting. This wasn’t a planned thing and it was quite in defiance of all orders. But they lit candles and played football and celebrated as though they weren’t in the middle of killing each other. Young men who were relieved to have a break from their fighting in the same way that kids in their first year of university are relieved to have midterms over and done with. Children.
I can’t really get my head around kids younger than my littlest brother being handed guns and sent off to bear the psychological weight of killing other people.
Today, those kids my youngest brother’s age can play war games on a computer and consider it fun. I don’t begrudge them that, although I will never understand why war-based computer games are so appealing. But today, it is important for everyone to note that you can play games where you pretend you’re fighting a war because you are lucky to be born in this time, in this part of the world, and in this incarnation of history where the actual fighting to give you that right has been done and was successful.
It isn’t good to dwell on the past and on the horrors that people can cause when they forget the fundamental truth that other people are just as real and as important and as beloved as they are, but it is necessary to never forget.
