War

One war finishes and another one starts. That is how it has always been - for millennia bar the occasional interlude. That interlude runs to about three years per hundred. It is rare for there to be complete peace the world over. However, looking at it another way, most people have been at peace most of the time. Not everyone has been fighting one another all the time. Far from it. Most wars are localised rather than pan global. Most individuals are simply not interested or prepared to fight one another. There is a lot of respect for other people’s desire to live. The majority have no wish to kill. The cause of the fighting? Sometimes religion, but more often it is to dominate land and resources.

We are not all born killers. Most of us find it quite hard to kill someone. The means by which we kill can make quite a difference. We can drop a bomb or fire an artillery shell from afar or experience the much greater personal intensity during hand-to-hand combat. There are a small number of people who become very proficient at killing. They may enjoy it and furthermore suffer no problems afterwards. These characters blazed the trail wiping out anything that got in the way. However, these people only account for something like 2% of the population. Huge numbers of soldiers have returned home having never fired a single shot, let alone at someone. Many fired their guns too high, over the heads of the opposition on purpose.

In modern armies, soldiers go through rigorous training programs to get an automatic reaction when under fire. When battles commence the training takes over and normal behaviour is set aside. Without this training most would be hopelessly ineffectual, but no matter how much training is given beforehand, dealing with the aftermath is never easy for everyone. Many soldiers have been severely traumatised by their war time experience, leading to a troubled life afterwards with many taking their own life to escape the pain. Visualisation techniques can help a determined person overcome the awful memories to some degree, but this is an area few armies concern themselves with.

We may think that we would never harm another, never kill, or maim. However, with authority from up high, in an environment away from normal life and given the right motivation, we can all be turned into pernicious individuals. Captors have been left in charge of prisoners both in war zones and in artificial experiments and the results have been deplorable. Within a few days the behaviour of those left in charge spirals downwards into a malicious contemptible affray. Those that claim that they would never show aggression nor fight another have not experienced being under siege. If someone breaks into your home threating the lives of your family, you can be most protective. Your reaction would be surprising, even to yourself, when reviewed in the calm days later. With the right incentive or the push from an authority figure we can be turned from a pacifist into a very mean individual fairly quickly.

Killing in the heat of battle is markedly different to terminating someone’s life in cold blood. Seeing someone being killed in front of us, in a cold calculated way, can be the most disturbing. More haunting perhaps than during a confusion of fighting. Those in a firing squad can see the pain and anguish on the face of the victim. They see the terror in the eyes. Executing someone is grim. Blindfolds - or shooting from behind attenuates this issue.

Armies can get bogged down, stalemate - where there is a gradual erosion of forces and the one that endures the longest prevails. Hit and run guerrilla tactics, over long periods of time also wear out all but the most patient fighting forces in the end. A coup, an invasion, trouble, oppression. Send in a small army and there will be losses. Muster a ginormous fighting force and the troublemakers may capitulate. They may give up without a fight when faced with such overwhelming tiny odds of surviving. Armies make a lot of threatening noise in the hope that the other side disperses or surrenders. In many battles it can be the perceived superiority rather than the actual strength that allows one side to achieve victory. Hence why the garish uniforms, drums and ineffectual but frightening looking equipment made earlier armies look formidable. Elephants have been used to charge at the enemy. They were somewhat effective except many turned around and ran back at those that sent them into the melee. Gas too had a habit of harming those that released it when there was an unexpected change in wind direction.

One clown remarked: two years in the making and ten minutes in the undoing. The quote refers to the time taken to train large groups of fighters and the speed at which they were annihilated during a minimally productive assault. The element missing from this portrayal is the twenty plus years of dedication, sacrifice and commitment made by their parents. The pregnancy. The years of weaning. The slog, mixed within the fun and reward of nurturing each of these individuals. The investment made in each of us is huge. To be a pawn in somebody else’s game, to have a bead of lead dismember a vital part of our body is not the same as being unfortunate in one’s own premeditated risky adventure. All that structure that took years of arranging and refining, lost in an instant. Learning mathematics, cookery, deportment, morals you name it. All lost. Everything right down to the spelling tests that your teachers insisted was so important to do well at. Gone.

Whether it is through war or accident, the exasperation of losing someone whom we have devoted so much attention to is never easy to come to terms with. Solace might be found in cherishing the memories of the time shared and a life cut short is still bountiful. Those with loved ones still intact may consider what could be, if a warning is ignored. We need reminders from time to time to stay grateful and make attempts to tear down any barriers created through petty feuds. It is noteworthy though how people in a country rally around and help each other before or whilst an enemy is attacking. Most personal differences are set aside. Communities get together and share the common problem. Then go back to petty feuds after it all calms down. However, a few unpopular people in the community ‘disappear’ as law and order is replaced by confusion and mayhem.