Their Name Liveth For Evermore

"War is the health of the state," said Randolph Bourne, an American intellectual.

Most Westerners during the 1900s saw war through a similar lens. During this period European nations and the United States focused on expanding and maintaining their respective spheres of influence in Africa and Asia. With relatively few exceptions, most of their indigenous opponents probably could not tell a trigger from a safety. War was but a game to the Western mindset, a game that could easily be won. When the Great War began, thousands flocked to the recruiting offices, not wanting to be left out of this great adventure. "It'll be over by Christmas," they said.

The war did not end by Christmas. The short adventure anticipated by the public turned out to be a four year-long stalemate that cost both Allied and Central Powers much blood and treasure. In three months the British Empire lowered their height requirement by five inches because their entire original army was wiped out. The Battle of the Somme alone caused 1,000,000 casualties both British and German, of which 310,000 lost their lives. The Hundred Days Offensive was just as costly, with the American Expeditionary Force suffering 130,00 casualties. In the French Army, 68 out of 112 divisions experienced mutinies, and 50 were shot by firing squads.

What if Bourne stood in a soldier's boots? What if he had also trudged through the mud, laden with sixty-one pounds of gear, rifle, pack, and all? What if he also hunkered down in the grimy, rat-infested trenches of the Marne front, anxious about the next mustard gas attack? What if he saw his comrades ripped to pieces by enemy fire from the countless Maxim machine guns that dotted both sides of the trenches?

Perhaps the lens that he saw war with would become much darker.

Like Randolph Bourne and his contemporaries, we tend to underestimate the seriousness of war. The battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan are distant world confined behind the television screen. In public we outwardly revere the soldier, but behind closed doors we mock him/her as a slack-jawed, uneducated jarhead with nothing better to do with his/her life. Remembrance Day has become No School Day. War is once again a foreign game. And history will repeat itself if this mindset does not change.

Whether you are in the United States, the Commonwealth, or the rest of the world, stop and take two minutes to remember those who sacrificed for your freedom. One minute is for giving thanks for the living, and the second minute is for remembering the fallen. Thank the veterans you know in person. Visit a cemetery and pay your respects. Maybe attend a Remembrance Day service. Wear the poppy with pride. And most of all, keep living. That would make our soldiers proud.