There is a war. Perhaps there are two. It’s hard to tell sometimes with the interleaved propaganda, the same enemy everywhere, the same command structure and the same profiteers. It’s hard to tell.
Another feature that they share in common are the legions of the dead. They both have people who were here, but are gone. Most did not go to their graves of their own volition; they simply were forced to accept an accidental fate.
We see the sacrifice that one of our own soldiers have offered and go on about how he gave his life for his country. But that is just a weak expression of what we, who made no such sacrifice, assign to the occasion.
That soldier, and every other soldier and civilian claimed in this conflict, gave up so much more than what our poor perception leads us to believe.
They gave up the light in their eyes, the sight of a smiling face after a shared joke, the hand they used to hold, a cool zephyr on a summer night. They gave up their next chance to survey a job that was just completed to perfection, to run across a beach into the surf, to throw their small child into the air and catch them into a hug. They lost the loved one’s voice and their favorite song. There is no more excitement at the anticipation of a night out with friends.
They lost the snowflake on their face and the pent up joy of a bountiful Christmas tree surrounded by kids. They gave up their memory of being in that circle, eyeing the package that looks about right to contain what they asked Santa for, and the multi-sensory high when that gift came into their hands.
They no longer have the family that raised them nor the family they were raising. They lost those memories of every moment of the life they led. The clouds in the sky are gone, and so is the ground under their feet. The stars in a clear night sky are a memory that will no longer be recalled; and all of this is an inadequate fraction of an inventory that could never be completed or fully appreciated.
In our ignorance, we see the loss of a life. From the perspective of those lost, it was an entire universe. We see ourselves as a small part of this immense universe, but the universe can only imprint itself upon the consciousness that is in each of us.
The universe in each of us is further impoverished by the loss of everything that these people may have accomplished if not for a war, deemed necessary by one imbecile who thought it would make him a great president. Do we still think it worthwhile?
Make it stop.
