Musings of A Simple Country Man
By Hobie Morris
Human habits change slowly and war is, perhaps, the oldest
mass habit of all.
–Harvey Allen, TOWARD THE FLAME, 1926
(Brookfield, NY – Feb. 2016) In the peaceful and beautiful Brookfield hills where we live, the barren trees stand silent sentinels over a natural world quietly and peacefully replenishing itself as it prepares for its life bursting emergence in a few months.
For this simple country man and his beautiful bride of nearly 50 years winter is a special time for reflection and occasional dreaming. My lovely Lois and I often wonder whether peace will prove as elusive in 2016 as it has in the past. Violence of all kinds seems to dominate the world in which we live. In the 20th century alone, over 100,000,000 people were killed in global fighting and other forms of violence.
Back in the late 18th century Founding Father Benjamin Franklin wisely said “there are no good wars or a bad peace.” While wars have been a fact of life, we must continue to honor the men and women who have been called upon over the centuries to fight. Wars are fought by the young and not by the elderly or war deciders. There would be no wars if these people fought them. My war dreams without people must be prefaced by the following.
Dave Dudajek’s many superlative remembrances of area WW II veterans, America’s incomparable greatest generation, reminds this simple country man of Al Reinert’s sad but beautiful musing that “their time is almost past now and as inspiration turns to mourning we are all diminished.”
Indeed, only 5 per cent of the 16 million Americans who fought in WW II are still among us. Over 500 die every day. Soon they will all be joining their comrades, including those recalled by Arlington, Virginia’s 92-year-old World War II combat Marine Thomas Miller, who wrote “so many lives got cut off…way too short. In recent years he has often thought “what a stupid thing war is. It goes against everything we are thought about the sanctity of life. How can you eliminate it? I don’t know.”
Washington Post, Nov. 11, 2014
Dave Dudajek’s wonderfully powerful and sensitive articles should remind all of us that wars have a profound impact that is incalculable but far too often is forgotten. For many reasons men and women such as Mr. Dudajek has written about silently fade into the nation’s dustbin of history. This is a tragedy of profound sadness to this simple country man.
In all wars the combatants eventually pass on, but the machinery of killing will continue for generations. For instance, in Germany bomb disposal authority Horst Reinhardt predicts “there will be bombs 200 years from now.” The legacy of 10 per cent of bombs dropped on Germany that never exploded but still kill.
Wars such as we are familiar with were recent developments. Early nomadic man mostly lived peacefully with one another. When men began to live in permanent settlements that eventually emerged into large institutions such as states and nations, conflicts became inevitable. Fears and competition helped to create adversaries who needed strong walls and a permanent military presence. We are essentially still in this phase of paranoia and potential violence, the cost of which is astronomical. War has become a fact and a precariousness that has led to the most heinous and barbaric depravity.
My beautiful wife Lois and I in the tranquility of a lonesome and peaceful winter Brookfield night dream of a world quite different. I believe the novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in her book FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL, wrote “an election is coming, universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.”
Colgate University grad and great American theologian Henry Emerson Fosdick has written “the tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst.”
The great American poet, Carl Sandburg, has given this simple country man an idea in his book THE PEOPLE YES. The story goes that a little girl is seeing her first troop parade. She asks her father “what are those?” He answers “soldiers.” She’s perplexed. “What are soldiers?” “They are for war,” he replies. “They fight and each tries to kill as many of the other side as he can.” The young girl pauses and pauses and finally announces, “Do you know…I know something?” Her father asked what she knew. “Some time they’ll give a war and nobody’ll come.”
This is our winter Brookfield dream of peace. Wars and nobody came because they were all sharing with each other ice cream cones and pizza. It would be the fulfillment of Isaiah ll:6 “And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid…and a little boy will lead them.”
To have a peaceful world people must begin by dreaming.
Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.