Something about veterans

War wounds. Amputations. For some reason, these were my thoughts this morning. I never knew anybody who lost something big in a war, and my first thought is that it's tragic and depressing. But it's not a useless waste. For us today, war is sanitized and the reality of what is happening is kept away from view. Wounds bring it home, showing that there are consequences. Those that make the decisions to create war need to see, and live among the people who sacrificed for those goals, however worthy they may be. The population at large needs to see the human consequence of political decisions. The war-monger and the anti-war activist are similar in that their rhetoric becomes ever more strident, the further away they are from real suffering and death.

I'm not really touching on the topics of the book here, but recently I read "What it is Like to Go to War," by Karl Marlantes. It was really good. His explanation of the psychology behind choosing to be a warrior was excellent. The problem is that you are not innocent, because you made a choice. But generally, it was a noble choice, meant to save people from harm. But still, there are consequences to killing, and our society needs to try and understand what we ask of soldiers at a deeper level.

Anyway, I guess my completely uneducated thought is that a soldier should be proud of his wounds. They teach the rest of us about the seriousness of what we ask, and the nobility of those who answer.