War can take and spoil lives in many ways. The killing doesn't stop when the war is over or a combat role is ended. This year again has seen record suicide rates for the US military, but one can assume the same is true for those fighting on the other side and for the millions of civilians caught up in it. This song by Canadian singer-songwriter Garnet Rogers is not about Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. It could be about any war. And one bullet:
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Today, French and other European dignitaries gathered at the site of Verdun, where an eight month battle between the French and Germans was carried out during World War I, also known as the Great War, or the War to End All Wars. This is Armistice Day, marking the end of that war.
From a reader in Western Massachusetts:
10 Reasons to Oppose the Escalation of War in Afghanistan
No money down, but the payments go on forever. The
only
people who win are the bankers and the contractors. We make
it easy to get in. But like herpes and condominiums, it is
hard to get rid of.
Beautiful! I'll be seeing Garnet perform in mid-January. Can't wait.
Too bad that his Afghanistan song isn't available on Youtube.
The photos in this montage are all from the U.S. Civil War.
The vast majority of casualties and deaths among soldiers during this war -- and virtually all wars those that preceded it and many of those that that followed --- died from infectious and vector-borne diseases like typhus, cholera, dysentery, smallpox, malaria and yellow fever -- not from combat injuries like those shown in these pictures.
Modern medicines, vaccines and antibiotics have made the waging of war much safer for combatants --
elephantman: Yes, I know. The song actually is about the Battle of Gettysburg. But it could have been almost any war. We save 'em now but throw them away when we get them back. And the civilians suffer more than 19th century wars. Have wars gotten kinder? Less lethal? Maybe.