contemplativeIt feels very appropriate to be reading on this subject during Memorial Day weekend, even though the special event this year is the dedication of the WWII memorial. And reading the details of these different battles really makes you think. It's been almost 100 years since WWI -- a war of land-grabbing and treaties gone awry, howitzers and trench warfare. Thousands lost at Yser, hundreds of thousands at Champagne... nearly 1,000,000 casualties at Verdun on both sides. I guess it puts things in perspective. It breaks my heart to think of the men and women lost in Iraq and Afghanistan... and in the years leading up to 9/11 with the first WTC bombing and the attack on the USS Cole (when we'd had war declared on us but certainly weren't acting like it). But then you compare those numbers to the numbers in WWI... and for what?
Anne and Gil's first born son, Jem, and his friend Jerry (daughter Nan's beau) are crossing the Atlantis right now, while the next oldest, Walter, is afraid of war and hasn't enlisted, much to Rilla and Anne's relief. I love how LM has shown so many of the complexities of emotion and reaction that way.
