Always Forgetting....

“We have shared the incommunicable experience of war.
We have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top.
In our youths our hearts were touched with fire.”
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes made this statement, referring to the Civil War. At that time men, women, and children were all face to face with war in the South. It was the last time our country felt the impact of war in our own homes, taking not only our men, boys, and fathers, but our communities. Yet we are taking all of this again, and losing it all again--but we forget, we deny, we look away and stare up at the television waiting for words of comfort from our President, words that never come.

Holmes' statement draws up sadness and pride...I think we have too much pride and not enough sadness.

I fear we forget these words, we forget the loss of so many men to war, we no longer taste the salty blood of wounds and the sour smell of dead bodies. This loss is too far from our doorways, no longer falling in the threshold of our homes. We are removed, too far removed, to feel this pain, until the letters come home telling us of our loss.

How I wish this war had never begun, and now I cannot picture its end.