Horrors Of War

WAR- the old view it with indifference, the middle aged and the young look at it with fear. Children no doubt consider war as romantic- they jump into the battle-field with blazing guns and return home to a hero’s welcome. They think that all kinds of medallions would be bestowed on them for their bravery.
However, make no mistake about this, war is a grim business where you either have to kill or get killed.
You will have to butcher your fellow men towards whom you bear no animosity. You may have to bear bullet injuries, you have to accept the risk that a grenade could land and explode any moment between your legs.
You could also be bought down by chemical and bacterial warfare. Mutilated bodies, shrapnel-torn flesh, limbs and shreds of skin and bones can be witnessed on a battlefield. At first you would be nauseated, but soon you would accept this and lose your idea of the value of human lives. You could witness your best friend reaching death’s door and may hear the news of your family having perished in an air-raid.
Your zest for living would be destroyed. States and old Polish saying:” Blood and destruction shall be so in use and dreadful objects so familiar that even mother’s will smile when they behold their infants quartered by the hands of war.” Before the 20th century, people were convinced that “Wars may come and wars may go but mankind will live on forever.” But when man found out how to split an atom this idea changed quite considerably. The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki clearly demonstrated their superb capability for destruction. And man gleefully set out to make improvements in quantity and quality of the bombs.
A cold war is raging now and nervous itchy fingers are hovering over the buttons that could release thousands of missiles all over the world. Of course nations protest that they possess missiles only for peace and disclaim all possibilities of war. But wars have been started by diplomatic misunderstandings and military mistakes. Missiles can malfunction and emerge from silos to streak towards their predetermined targets. Even as you read this and look out of the window to see why the light outside has grown so dim, do not be surprised to see a mushroom shaped nuclear cloud.
Some people maintain that man who has survived holocausts throughout ages will surely survive the agony of the third world war. But can you imagine man emerging out of radiation waste with horribly mutilated limbs. Will this creature qualify to be called MAN?
Now it is the time to realize that we are puppets who dance every time to the time of a score of powerful manipulators all over the world. These men must realize that they have been assigned a sacred task as trustees of nations to preserve peace and hand over power to their successors with the world intact when their time is over.
We, the young people, children of today, adults of tomorrow, successors of the next generation, must make a plea that a little oasis of peace be made in the desert of hostility, that we may stretch it to a fertile plain of hope, joy, happiness and contentment.