Peace

Yesterday was December 7th.  A day which will live in infamy, was forgotten for a moment. I wasn't born in 1941, my parents weren't even born, but that doesn't excuse my negligence in forgetting the significance of yesterdays date, or today's importance for that matter.

Seventy-one years ago today Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the Vice President, the Speaker, the Senates and the House of Representatives, beseeching the Senate to declare war on the Japanese Empire for their unprovoked attacks in the pacific, the most catastrophic of which being Pearl Harbor. Thousands of brave servicemen lost their lives that fateful winter day. Wars have come and gone since then. Terrible actions have been taken on both sides of every conflict.

Whenever I find myself thinking of Pearl Harbor I can't help but remember Wilfred Owen's poem Dulce et Decorum Est. I reread it today for the first time in probably three or four years. Owen was writing in 1918 about the war they believed was "the war to end all wars" the war we no longer call the "great war,"  now we just refer to it as World War I. There is however something heartrendingly relevant about the poem written almost a century ago. As I read the twenty-eight lines of the poem my heart ached, it was hard to read with the vise pressing on my chest and the tears swimming in my eyes. The sad simple description and hypocrisy addressed in the final few lines are sadly relevant even today a century later.

It may be naive of me, but I still helplessly hope for peace. It's the ever unobtainable dream. This time of year is about dreams, magic and miracles. But it's not 1914, there won't be any Christmas truces. Instead we have increasingly violent and tumultuous conflict between Israel and Palestine, continued conflict in the Middle East and a never ending battle to try make sure no child has to go to bed scared or hungry.

So I beseech everyone to look at yesterday and today as the warnings and reminders they are. But most importantly this time of year, remember 1914. Peace can reign, lest we forget, violence begets violence, but peace, peace is miraculous, without it whats the point of any of this.