War is hell

Back in high school, one of the essays that we read was an excerpt from Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.  It made an impression on me--enough that I am blogging about it forty years later!  The horrors of World War I and the anti-war sentiments in that essay appealed to the pacifist in me.

Much later in life, I read Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.  This too was set in the context of World War I.  And, a lot more emotional and moving anti-war statement it was, as I have blogged here.

Tomorrow--the 11th--will be the 100th anniversary of the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month when fighting ended with an armistice.  The world has witnessed a lot more wars since that war to end all wars.

Hemingway channeled through his characters about the insanity of wars:

"There is nothing as bad as war. ... When people realize how bad it is they cannot do anything to stop it because they go crazy.  There are some people who never realize. There are people who are afraid of their officers. It is with them the war is made"
"I know it is bad but we must finish it."
"It doesn't finish.  There is no finish to a war."
"Yes there is."
Passini shook his head.
"War is not won by victory. ... We think. We read. We are not peasants.  We are mechanics.  But even the peasants know better than to believe in a war.  Everybody hates this war."
"There is a class that controls a country that is stupid and does not realize anything and never can. That is why we have this war."
"Also they make money out of it."

Catch 22 was another anti-war work, though it was set during a war that happened a half-century later, in a completely different geographic and political context.

... Outside the hospital the war was still going on.  Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.  All over the world, boys on very side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all he boys who were laying down their young lives.  There was no end in sight. The only end in sight was Yossarian's own ...

Here's to hoping that peace will soon prevail--well before the proverbial eleventh hour--in places like Yemen and Syria where wars have been ongoing for a few years now.