Brothers in Arms...

I've finally caught up with Bands of Brothers, well over a decade after i had first intended. The words of Churchill spring to mind- "Never was so much owed by so many to so few"

As you get older, you learn the value of life. You realise how devastating loss can be, how traumatic injuries, both physical and mental, can be for those who suffer them; and those who bear witness to them. Watching a series like Band of Brothers really reminds me just how lucky I am to live in (my) conflict free zone. I've had the misfortune to see someone being shot and while it was traumatic, it's something that i (hopefully!) don't expect to see ever again. I didn't know the guy who was shot, other than to know him as a face about town, and so, the loss of his life; whilst devastating for his family, meant very little in the grand scheme of my life. 

Yet i've known soldiers my age who have had to watch their "brothers", their friends, their colleagues, lose their lives or be wounded and still have to carry on each day. I know a man who lives with the memory of shooting a child suicide bomber. War has fewer rules nowadays, some enemies don't do uniforms, and it's innocents who suffer for it. The difference now is the lack of support for them when they're out of uniform, when they're on civvie street, either on leave, or permanently. It's not a life i could comprehend leading, ever.

Obviously, in WWII, young men didn't have much of a choice to go into action-some flourished, some faltered, muchlike mankind itself. And that to me, is what makes their sacrifice all the greater. To know that you have no choice but to go out and kill or be killed as a matter of war is something i (luckily) will never have to do. 

It's surreal to think that just a few countries away, war is waging....in the Ukraine, in Syria...and i'm ashamed to say that the news of the murders, the car bombings, and the suicide bombings in the Middle East are all things that only briefly catch my attention on the news, much in the same jaded way the bombings and punishment beatings in NI used to when i was younger. Yet now again, something hits home, and makes the concept of what others are going through that bit clearer. For me, it was the news that to date (31/01/14) almost 2000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian peace talks on Jan 22nd. That's a regular attendance at The Showgrounds to me. The thoughts of the physical space required by that amount of people, the thoughts of looking around that stadium to see almost 2000 dead bodies did, and still does, bring such sadness on me....and that's only the death toll over a week. Over the last decade, thousands have died-all in the name of a "civil" war.

Later this year, the world will begin to commemorate WW I "The Great War".... a war to end all wars....how little we've learnt over a century...