Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman is reported to have said that “War is hell.”
The Union officer was right. No one who’s ever been to war disputes the utter hell and misery associated with humankind’s most hideous action.
Occasionally over the centuries, though, combatants have demonstrated that because war is waged by human beings, that their humanity can present itself on the battlefield.
One hundred years ago, British and German soldiers laid down their weapons during World War I, the so-called “Great War” and the “War To End All Wars.” They reached across the zone littered with the corpses of men who had fallen in battle.
They held hands and sang “Silent Night.”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/christmas-1914-day-wwi-showed-humanity-27733586
“Not a shot was fired,” Lt. Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxony regiment wrote in his diary that first Christmas of World War I.
The Associated Press reported: “On the other side of the front line, Pvt. Henry Williamson of the London Rifle Brigade was amazed by the goodwill among his enemies. ‘Yes, all day Xmas Day & as I write. Marvelous, isn’t it?'”
I get that war never is noble. It’s never glorious or glamorous. Its brutality defies human imagination.
It’s also waged by men — and now, women — who are doing the duty their nation requires of them. They answer the call to fight for their nation. Their devotion to duty doesn’t make them evil.
Of course, that was then. War was different — not necessarily better — than what we’re seeing today, with men committing atrocities, broadcasting their actions around the world and then boasting about the cruelty they exhibit.
The event that occurred on that Belgium battlefield 100 years ago, though, demonstrates how humanity can present itself on a field stained with combatants’ blood.
Yes, war is hell — but even this version of hell can be made peaceful, even if only long enough to sing a Christmas hymn.