11-11-11

Today is 11/11/11, so I feel like I need to post something. But I don't really have much to post, so this might be boring. However, today is Veteran's Day, and I always try to take a little time to reflect on what that means. In this country, we've been extremely lucky and not had a(n active) war on our soil for may, many decades. So I think sometimes I forget what it would be like to live in a war zone. Everything would change, always for the worse. And then keep changing until the end of the war, but more probably the end of your life. It's not really a happy thought. But it's important to keep being thankful that we don't have to send our husbands and sons off to kill other people blindly and mercilessly.

This past summer Mom and Dad and I watched Downton Abbey on cd. It's a really great series, about a family who lives in a great house and all the people who come into their lives. I highly recommend it, if you haven't seen or heard of it. It's very interesting and well-written; as viewers we get to know all the individual characters (most of them servants, but the master is a very good man, so you don't feel badly for them), and love or hate them accordingly. At the very end of the first season, the master of the house is having a garden party. A letter arrives and he has to announce to the whole gathering that Britain is now at war. It's 1914, which can only mean one thing: The Great War. Your heart just breaks for those people in that scene. You want it not to be true. You want to spare them the currently unbeknown-to-them horror of a world wide war. I remember thinking, No, please, no. Not a world war. Not now. Not to these people. You know no one's life will ever be the same. You know the characters will have to go off to fight. You know they probably won't come back.

Growing up, I heard much more about WWII than WWI. But recently I've been reading some books that talk about it, one especially that examines the affect of WWI on the men who fought, and the difference manifestations of Shell Shock (now known as PTSD). The invention of explosives and automatic machine weapons seemed like such a good idea, no one understood the repercussions they brought with them. Our men came back from that war a whole new kind of crazy. It was devastating. A whole generation was lost. And not just the ones who died in battle, but the men who came back, and everyone knew there was something terribly wrong, but no one knew how to handle it. What do you do for a man who comes back completely changed? And not just changed like you change from a child to an adult, not the way a person changes when he or she becomes a parent. But really changed, like someone whose hands shake uncontrollably, and freezes with flashbacks so often that he's unable to do his job. Or someone who is mentally incapable of living in the present moment, who can't even recognize his own wife and children anymore. Someone with paralyzing nightmares, who is continually irritable or angry, who sees no point in living life anymore. Men who are utterly unable of returning to their old lives in any capacity, they are so haunted by the terrible things they've seen. And as his wife, or girlfriend, or daughter, there is nothing you can do to help him.

I apologize for bringing up such a distressing subject. But it's important for us to realize what kind of terrible suffering war brings. Some of us have fathers and grandfathers that fought in war. Their sacrifice should not be forgotten. As the Quebecois say, "N'oublions pas." So please, let us be grateful for the peaceful time we live in, and pray that we never have to see the terrifying face of war.