{"id":65769,"date":"2016-02-17T19:08:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T00:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=65769"},"modified":"2016-02-17T17:20:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T22:20:17","slug":"war-dreams-without-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=65769","title":{"rendered":"War Dreams Without People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musings of A Simple Country Man<\/p>\n

\"Hobie<\/a>
Hobie Morris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Hobie Morris<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Human habits change slowly and war is, perhaps, the oldest <\/em><\/p>\n

mass habit of all.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 –Harvey Allen, TOWARD THE FLAME, 1926<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

(Brookfield, NY \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

For this simple country man and his beautiful bride of nearly 50 years winter is a special time for reflection and occasional dreaming.\u00a0 My lovely Lois and I often wonder whether peace will prove as elusive in 2016 as it has in the past.\u00a0 Violence of all kinds seems to dominate the world in which we live.\u00a0 In the 20th century alone, over 100,000,000 people were killed in global fighting and other forms of violence.<\/p>\n

Back in the late 18th century Founding Father Benjamin Franklin wisely said \u201cthere are no good wars or a bad peace.\u201d 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.\u00a0 Wars are fought by the young and not by the elderly or war deciders.\u00a0 There would be no wars if these people fought them.\u00a0 My war dreams without people must be prefaced by the following.<\/p>\n

Dave Dudajek\u2019s many superlative remembrances of area WW II veterans, America\u2019s incomparable greatest generation, reminds this simple country man of Al Reinert\u2019s sad but beautiful musing that \u201ctheir time is almost past now and as inspiration turns to mourning we are all diminished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, only 5 per cent of the 16 million Americans who fought in WW II are still among us.\u00a0 Over 500 die every day.\u00a0 Soon they will all be joining their comrades, including those recalled by Arlington, Virginia\u2019s 92-year-old World War II combat Marine Thomas Miller, who wrote \u201cso many lives got cut off\u2026way too short.\u00a0\u00a0 In recent years he has often thought \u201cwhat a stupid thing war is.\u00a0 It goes against everything we are thought about the sanctity of life.\u00a0 How can you eliminate it?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington Post, Nov. 11, 2014<\/p>\n

Dave Dudajek\u2019s 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.\u00a0 For many reasons men and women such as Mr. Dudajek has written about silently fade into the nation\u2019s dustbin of history.\u00a0 This is a tragedy of profound sadness to this simple country man.<\/p>\n

In all wars the combatants eventually pass on, but the machinery of killing will continue for generations.\u00a0 For instance, in Germany bomb disposal authority Horst Reinhardt predicts \u201cthere will be bombs 200 years from now.\u201d\u00a0 The legacy of 10 per cent of bombs dropped on Germany that never exploded but still kill.<\/p>\n

Wars such as we are familiar with were recent developments.\u00a0 Early nomadic man mostly lived peacefully with one another.\u00a0 When men began to\u00a0 live in permanent settlements that eventually\u00a0 emerged into large institutions\u00a0 such as states and nations, conflicts became inevitable.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fears and competition helped to create adversaries who needed strong walls and a permanent military presence.\u00a0\u00a0 We are essentially still in this phase of paranoia and potential violence,\u00a0 the cost of which is astronomical. War has become a fact and a precariousness that has led to the most heinous and barbaric depravity.<\/p>\n

My beautiful wife Lois and I in the tranquility of a lonesome and peaceful winter Brookfield night dream of a world quite different.\u00a0 I believe the novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in her book FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL, wrote \u201can election is coming, universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colgate University grad and great American theologian Henry Emerson Fosdick has written \u201cthe tragedy of war is that it uses man\u2019s best to do man\u2019s worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

The great American poet, Carl Sandburg, has given this simple country man an idea in his book THE PEOPLE YES.\u00a0 The story goes that a little girl is seeing her first troop parade.\u00a0 She asks her father \u201cwhat are those?\u201d\u00a0 He answers \u201csoldiers.\u201d\u00a0 She\u2019s perplexed.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are soldiers?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThey are for war,\u201d he replies.\u00a0 \u201cThey fight and each tries to kill as many of the other side as he can.\u201d\u00a0 The young girl pauses and pauses and finally announces, \u201cDo you know\u2026I know something?\u201d\u00a0 Her father asked what she knew.\u00a0 \u201cSome time they\u2019ll give a war and nobody\u2019ll come.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is our winter Brookfield dream of peace.\u00a0\u00a0 Wars and nobody came because they were all sharing with each other ice cream cones and pizza.\u00a0 It would be the fulfillment of Isaiah ll:6\u00a0 \u201cAnd the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid\u2026and a little boy will lead them.\u201d<\/p>\n

To have a peaceful world people must begin by dreaming.<\/p>\n

Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musings of A Simple Country Man By Hobie Morris   Human habits change slowly and war is, perhaps, the oldest mass habit of all. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 –Harvey Allen, TOWARD THE FLAME, 1926 \u00a0 (Brookfield, NY \u2013 Feb. 2016) In the peaceful and beautiful Brookfield hills where we live, the barren trees stand silent sentinels over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}