Ukraine: Stop the Killing

                                           

 

Even the most inveterate Trump hater should at least be able to give the President some credit for wanting to stop the killing in Ukraine. I know they distrust anything he says, and fear that he will strike a bad deal with Russia, but the older I get, the more I think that putting an end to the killing and ravages of war transcends all other considerations. 

As the saying goes, “War is Hell” but many commentators on both sides seem to regard it as a game that can be won or lost. However, would any of these pundits be willing to participate on an actual battlefield? It is always the young men on both sides who will bear the burden and face the horror.

A couple of years ago I read and posted on Lawrence Kirby’s Stories from the Pacific, a book about his experience as a young Marine in World War II. I was told about this book by my brother-in-law Richard Gardella who knew Larry Kirby briefly before the former Marine died at the age of 99 in a Senior residence. The stories in Kirby’s book are a real eye opener and at times extremely heart rending. 

In one especially moving chapter he describes one incident that took place while fighting in the jungle of the island of Guam. He was on a scouting mission when suddenly he came upon a young Japanese soldier about 20 feet away. Their eyes met in stunned silence but after a brief pause the Japanese hurled a grenade and Kirby rushed him and opened fire. Kirby was wounded by the grenade shrapnel, but the Japanese soldier was dead. Kirby never forgot that tragic experience. Years later he wrote this poem.

I met a youthful enemy 

My fear reflected in his eye

I loathed him not, nor did he me

But we must fight and one must die.

No longer boys but not yet men

Just sad young soldiers sick with fright

Flag and face our difference then

One’s timeless sleep would come that night

Panic grew with every breath

I had to kill, I had to try.

Why do I seek a stranger’s death?

With vain despair I wondered why?

I could be his friend, not foe

Such wish was true, not foolish whim.

The brave, young lad will never know.

With tragic skill I murdered him.

Long years have passed since when he fell

My heart still aches, no sense of pride.

Though I seem here I live in hell.

On that cruel day I also died. *

Lawrence Kirby believed that soldiers did not like to talk about their experiences mainly because no one would believe how horrible war could be for the young men who actually fought. He wrote, 

"The ultimate desecration of the human spirit is the conscious activity of cruel inhumanity, predicated and justified—at least in the minds of those who sent us—as noble and patriotic duty, a privilege and responsibility accepted willingly by only the brave, offering their lives in this crusade and, further, willing to kill other equally brave and misguided young men in the cause of patriotism and in the name of duty…. (53)

My war ended with Iwo Jima. I was one of the very lucky few to survive the terrible bloodshed. It was my last campaign, thank God. The killing, the screaming, the torn bodies, the shattered limbs the suffering—it had become too much to handle! There were times when I thought I would welcome death. Ending the terror seemed more important than living." (56)

It seems to me that all Americans should unite behind the President in his efforts to stop the killing. I don't believe it will be as easy as the President initially thought, but it would certainly help if, on this one issue, he had the support of a united America.   

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*Lawrence F. Kirby: Stories from the Pacific. P. 102