War what is it good for

With ANZAC day upon us and this being the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli we are all pausing to think about what it means to us.

Now please don't get me wrong, don't think me ungrateful or un-Australian. But when I stop and think about what happened on those jaggeder cliffs in a place that we wouldn't speak of if it wasn't for the blood shed there I don't think of our heroes, I think of wasted lives. I don't find any comfort or pride in thinking about young men who were sent to their deaths because of a mistake. A mistake that was repeated and prolonged because men in far off offices who would never muddy their boots with the dirt and the blood because they didn't want to admit that a mistake had occurred.

I understand that I am in no way educated on these matters and I very much do not want to offend people whose family sufficed on the battle field.  When I talk with master 9 who is so interested and a little excited by all the talk of war. I always talk of the waste, loss and pointlessness of war. I want him to understand the pointlessness of war.

The lesson that I hope my children learn and never ever forget is that war is hideous. It steals lives, destroys families, decimates  generations and should be avoided at all cost.

Having said that I am extremely grateful for the amazing men and women who place themselves in danger to protect the rest of us. 

I have a German friend who is about my age and she told me once that she feels that its her generations job to remember what can happen if people don't question and blindly follow so that something like the holocaust never happens again. And of course she is right.

So Least We Forget.

Lest We Forget the fallen,

Lest We Forget the waste,

Lest We Forget the broken,

Lest We Forget the destroyed.

Because I find it very hard to see glory in men shooting each other and I hope my children never have to live through a war like it.