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Free Seeds of Peace...
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May 26, 2003
Memorial Day
Today is Memorial Day and I grieve. I grieve the millions of Americans who sacrificed their lives in wars. I grieve their lost dreams and ambitions. I grieve for the mothers and fathers who endured their children’s passing. I grieve for the wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends who had to carry on. I grieve for the children, who can’t understand why Daddy or Mommy isn’t coming home. I grieve and my tears well up as I reflect on what is lost.
But my grief is not complete. I grieve as well for the innocents who were lost. The babes in mothers’ arms blown up by indiscriminate bombs. The men, women and children caught in the crossfire of advancing armies. I grieve for those who died in the torture chambers and the prison camps. All lost to the maw of war.
I grieve still more. I grieve for those who succumbed to the diseases that follow war. I grieve for those who perished for lack of food or water in the aftermath. I grieve for those who survived but ended up disabled or became lost souls, adrift and alone in what they witnessed.
And, on this somber occasion, I also ask why" Why did they have to suffer and die" All the wars of the twentieth century could have been avoided if the leaders of the nations chose differently. Why did the world’s chosen so often resort to war to settle their differences" Why did they choose belligerence instead of cooperation" Why did they prefer greed instead of sharing with those less fortunate" Why did they shriek with hate and not seek compassionate understanding" Why did they appease instead of resist oppression"
The Twentieth Century has seen one hundred million people* fed into the mouths of the cannons. Each of these young men and women could have been your child, your mother, father, son or daughter, brother, sister, your husband or your wife. And what have we lost" Harold Begbie on the eve of World War I wrote: “Remember this. Among the young conscript soldiers of Europe who will die in thousands, and perhaps millions, are the very flower of civilization; we shall destroy brains which might have discovered for us in ten or twenty years easements for the worst of human pains and solutions for the worst of social dangers. We shall blot those souls out of our common existence. We shall destroy utterly those splendid burning spirits reaching out to enlighten our darkness. ... We are destroying the brightest of our angels.”
As we begin a new century I ask, how many bright angels will we sacrifice to empire" What new enemies will appear that war will be the cure" In the end, if we can not find better leaders than those already found, I tremble at the pain and suffering to come.
Johnny Peaceseed
* Time magazine (March 9, 1970) observed that 100,000,000 have died in wars since the being of the 20th century, while only 3,845,000 died in the 19th century.
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