War...What Is It Good For?

  I had a very hard night on Friday, I have been watching a series on Netflix called "The Last Heroes, World War II”, it is about the time from the invasion of Normandy to the end of the war; the last show had the Allies finding the concentration camps and the horrors that awaited them upon finding the wasted bodies, some of which however faint  still held a life, I have seen this before but have never thought about my two beloved sons as maybe having had to go through that in their war, it hit me like a ton of bricks, although circumstances are different and warfare is different, my two sons have been to war! My children have seen dead bodies lying along the roadside, had friends and comrades killed, I pray that they never saw a bulldozer pushing dozens of bodies into a big hole in the ground, but those soldiers in 1945 did and I did on the TV screen; I saw a woman walking down a bombed out city street, carrying her purse across her arm, very much like your 1^st grade teacher did and suddenly she fell from view, I didn’t need sound effects to tell me why. David called me a few times from Iraq, in one conversation he said it was hard to watch a woman walk down the road and have to walk around unexploded ordinances (bombs) just to get a gallon of milk, he told me the children were “cute, nefariously cute, they smile and wave but could be hiding explosives” apparently they don’t use the word “bomb” anymore. As I sat crying after the show went off, I heard my son rummaging in the kitchen for a midnight snack and said a prayer thanking the good Lord above for sending my two sons home safely, I went into the kitchen and told him I needed to hold him, those of you that know David know it is rare he lets someone hold him but he held me and let me cry, I told him some of what I had seen and when I got to the woman, I mentioned the woman in Iraq, I didn’t get a chance to finish because I was sobbing and in a small voice he said “I didn’t think I told you about the woman in Iraq” which let me know we were talking about two different women. My sons don’t talk much about their time in military service.  Maybe someday there will be a documentary about their war and some distant mother will look at it and pray for her own children and thank God that they are home safe. I can’t help but think that somewhere in Iraq, some mother is at this very moment thanking God that her sons and daughters are safe, even as they dodge bullets and explosives  to bring home a gallon of milk. May God help our differing views come together and bring peace for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.