WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021 WAR IS HELL.

 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021 WAR IS HELL.

I hope I’m not painting myself into a corner!! 

(And, a comment on my comment - I remember cartoons where the characters painted themselves into a corner!!  Or a cartoon character on a tree branch, cutting off the branch he is sitting on - and the tree falls over)

Monday I wrote about Memorial Day - and the horror of the Civil War.  I wrote, “War Is Hell” (from Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman).  

I found an old Chicago Tribune (2004) on this topic.  

“Hell can be defined simply as the furthest away you can get from what is good and right, the furthest away you can get from God; war is hell because whether we succeed or fail in our military objective, everybody finally loses a lot, even those who live through it.”

The article goes on with this example from the author:

“My grandfather spent three years in the trenches in France. He was one of those for whom the term shell shock was invented. He came home from the Great War without a physical scratch on him and he was a ruined human being. Those who knew him before he went off to France described him as fun-loving and kind; he returned furiously angry, unable to concentrate, and became an alcoholic, self-medicating for his psychic pain. He lived with our family and most nights he would awake in the night, screaming. He screamed for about 50 years. After the war, he lived the rest of his life, simply, in hell.”

War is hell.

(Okay, crossing into touchy areas).  1 Samuel 15:3, Samuel, the prophet of God, tells Saul (the anointed King of Israel) “Now go and completely destroy the entire Amalek nation—men, women, babies, little children, oxen, sheep, camels, and donkeys.’” 

And, likewise, Deuteronomy 20:13.“When the Lord your God hands the town over to you, use your swords to kill every man in the town.”

God seems to be telling the Israelite leaders to KILL, KILL, KILL.  DESTROY.

Is this the God I follow?  (No wonder I like the New Testament more).  Everyone is made in God’s image.  Even those (terrible) Amalek people were human and God said “KILL” - everything, even little children and babies!!!  

(Aside, a topic that I WILL NOT FOLLOW - are current Israeli forces still following this in the never-ending war with the Palestinians? And, a second aside - if God was giving the Hebrews “a land flowing with milk and honey”, why didn’t he move them to the Central California valleys!!!)

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I was never in the military.  I do recognize the accomplishments of the military.  I recognize my brother-in-law who carries painful shrapnel in his legs from his time in Vietnam; I recognize my father-in-law from so many things - loss of hearing (due to cannons and the noise), loss of his feet (trench foot from wet books), and vivid terrifying memories. 

War is hell.  

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Back to the Chicago Tribune article again:

“Those who work with victims of post-traumatic stress disorder say trauma is contagious. Just being constantly exposed to the descriptions of acts of extreme violence can give you shell shock, say the psychologists who study this phenomenon. In my terms, that means, seriously, that "hell is contagious." As we Americans view the violence of war on our TV screens, as we read about military action in the newspapers, as we hear commentary on the radio, we all are a little bit shell-shocked from it. It is common for Americans today to complain about the fact that everybody's temper is short, that we are not civil to each other, that we all are distracted and irritable. We were miserably uncivil to each other in this last presidential campaign. Shell shock.”

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I have been to Minsk, Belarus twice with my Fulbright exchange friend.  We toured some of the monuments to the Russian dead from World War II.  Their land was invaded by the Hitler forces with a great many dead.  I’m guessing that the Iraqi, Iranian, Afghanistan's also have monuments to their dead as well.  

YES - WAR IS HELL

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But, is war inevitable?  Can a country just turn the other cheek (as Jesus suggests to individuals?) 

What if we (the Union / Northern States) let the Confederate States break off?  We see that in other places, North and South Korea for example, Czechoslovakia into two countries - Czech Republic and Slovakia.

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There is a concept of “Just War”:

“The just war theory is a largely Christian philosophy that attempts to reconcile three things:

. taking human life is seriously wrong 

. states have a duty to defend their citizens, and defend justice

.protecting innocent human life and defending important moral values sometimes requires the willingness to use force and violence

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Was the North (Union) justified to have the Civil War?  Were the Allies justified to fight the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan)?   Far be it for me to say!!!

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I write LOVE WINS, but there seem to be no real winners in War.  

I think I’m painting myself in the pacifist corner.  (Is there hope for me?)

Karen