War! What is it good for?

We saw politicians lined up to honour the dead this weekend – whatever honour in this instance might mean. It certainly raises questions.

Why do we have these ceremonies, and why are politicians seen as the most appropriate people for the honouring job, particularly when wise folk that they are, they are very unlikely ever to face enemy gunfire?

 It's interesting to ask why these public representatives are even present for the performances.

And this question might be worth posing: why would the military and political sections of such a modern world want to keep war as the stuff of heroes? Why indeed?

 Blown apart

 Could it really be to, as the saying goes, to honour the dead of war, those poor fellows blown apart by guns and munitions that some multi-multi-millionaire manufacturer of weapons has sold to warring governments?

These government reps are out in their Sunday best, posed before the cameras, praising the dead and mutilated for ... well, for what? It's for doing what governments have decreed, and established the law that forces them to go to war. Is the praise then for being a war casualty?

Or might it be to placate people and families close to those who went to war and lost their lives doing so?

 Might it be that Establishment fears that if didn't make a show of the sort we were treated to at the weekend then survivors might well question the obvious, whether there is any sense at all in war?

Cutting out the wild animal

How would it have been had Chamberlain, visiting Germany to face up to Hitler, known that there was no chance of either population going to war because humans no longer wanted to?

And what if the German leader knew and understood that population would not tolerate war either?

Sadly, as astonishingly gifted intellectually as we are, with an abundance of wisdom and centuries of experience thrown in, we can't get the wild animal out of us.

 The numbers being remembered – and who certainly deserve to be remembered - are astonishing. The website History on the net, reports that World War One, one of the deadliest conflicts in human history, stole the lives of about 37 million people.

 The second world war snatched the lives of more than 80 million, which includes deaths from war-related disease and famine, reports Wikipedia.

Vietnam war: 58,200 killed

The Korean War claimed at least two and a half million people, reports Britannica encyclopedia.

An approximate toll for the Vietnam war is 58,200 … Continues on the blogs for my ocean sailing adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at sailingtopurgatory.com