War

 "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity"   D. Eisenhower.

War has come again to Europe. I don't want to be writing about this. I want to be profiling flowers and posting about the weather. But this is my garden journal and right now as the worlds military superpowers play a game of chicken with a madman, it seems worth a mention. I actually want to challenge the quote above. The soldier may have willingly signed up for it, the soldier gets to carry a gun or drive a tank through it, the soldier gets to wear armor and be afforded at least some protection like a bunker or a concrete pillbox, the soldier gets to fling missiles and mortar shells from miles away and kill with impunity. 

I imagine a revised version of that quote where it states "I hate war as only a refugee displaced by it's brutality, it's futility and it's stupidity can". One day you are living your life as a free person, trying to eek out an existence on this planet and the next you are fleeing for your life as the war machine comes to separate your flesh from bone. For what? 

My Dad was borne in China while his family fled Ukraine some 70 plus years ago. That's my Grandpa and Grandma and my Dad, Uncle and Aunt. After fleeing the ravages of war and Stalins Purges.They walked clear across Central Asia and China to try to find Freedom. 

Do we learn nothing from history? Here we are within a lifetime of Hitler's atrocities and Stalin's purges and we are right back where it all started,  imposing crippling economic sanctions designed to stop war from ever happening after that war to end all wars......  Read your history books to find out what happened with that strategy. I don't have answers to this madness. Part of me thinks the reason my own government has taxed me nearly to death my entire life was so that we could build a war machine strong enough to stand up to the senseless terror and threats to democracy around the world and we should use the full force of it.

 Part of me has a deeply ingrained pacifist root that says "there are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for" 

The remaining part of me, tries really hard to put myself in those 2 million plus pairs of shoes who have crowded train stations, walked on foot and through mud filled fields and across miles to escape the war that was thrust on them for no reason. Where would I go? If my peaceful little vinyard and christmas tree laden neighborhood was being carved into  trenches and tanks were rolling down the old gravel roads, where would I go? If you suddenly had to pack it all up and flee where would you head? Would your conscience allow you to go to another country? Knowing that for the past 4 years here in the land of freedom and opportunity for the yearning masses, so many people frothed madly at the mouth while screaming "Build the Wall", where would you go? Would that country accept you? Or would they turn us away with barriers of concrete and barbed wire. 

I'm half Ukranian, the other half is about as American as apple pie, but they too immigrated here. 

I can't do much more here than put my thoughts up and some flowers that remind me of the Ukranian flag. 

Both sides of my family made it to America as refugees. This country was founded on that principle if you make it here we will take you in and give you the opportunity to make a better life. This country will tax the living daylights out of you, but in exchange our military will protect the freedoms and principles that make it great. 

 

I lost it emotionally the other day as I watched a father crying over the body of his 16 year old child who was killed in the shelling of a neighborhood. A few weeks ago that was a family just going about there business peacefully on this planet, A 16 year old with his life ahead of him. War has no place in a modern society. Duke it out with your cyber threats and economic punishments, but let the people live. We all only get such a short time here to exist. I can't even imagine what I would do or become if my daughter was taken away from me by such a senseless act of aggression. 

I'll tell you one thing, if anyone in America thinks they are putting the White Supremicist, Putin apologizing, Fascist, Criminal and Nazi that is Trump back in power in this country. You may see me lay down my pacifist ideology long enough to test the theory that "There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for"

Solidarity for Ukraine.