RUINS OF WAR

There are so many men who fixate on the tools of war. We have the luxury of being unimpassioned, distant, and, if we like, totally objective. We can spout mouthfuls of specifications and recite pages of performance figures for any number of combat equipment.

In many cases, we can still see these machines and touch them. In the case of aircraft, we can see them fly and hear their unique sounds, yet, in all of this, it is too easy to lose touch with the jobs these tools did -- and every tool does have a job.

The destruction caused by these aircraft is often known only through a few documentaries from a long time ago. Again, this is only information...often theoretical.

Each night as we sit down to supper, we can see in glorious digital, high-definition color the human carnage of some battle somewhere. These battles are being played out in ages-old regional rivalries. From the humidity of Africa to the arid sands of the same place; and on the streets of Belfast, or the sands of a Middle Eastern country. The origins of many of these tribal conflicts are lost in antiquity.

And we can hear the most heart-wrenching descriptions that self-righteous journalists can produce, and we really become rather used to it all; the distractions, the political confusion, the diplomatic ineptitude, and all the suggestions of impossible solutions to misunderstood problems.

Often we do something similar to what a previous generation did about a previous war -- we mentally "drop out" and either "turn off."

We look at wars in the growing-more-distant past, thinking that "it was a long time ago" -- it was a 'just another war'."

My friends, I do not permit myself to lose sight of the corpse.

Even when not seen, I know it is just below the grass, behind the bush, just out of sight in the ditch, behind the barn, it is somewhere -- sometimes everywhere.

I can humanize this photo.

We can just see that this young man is on his back, dead and broken.

He is not "resting" -- not "sleeping" -- and not on a "field of honor." These are the terms used by the poets and the brave non-combatant.

It appears that his clothes are all that is holding his parts in one place...like a marionette dropped by a suddenly disinterested puppet master.

This young man is a ruin of war and he is found lying amidst other ruins. He is as much a part of this war-time, field debris as is the aircraft twenty feet away.

All...all of this misspent hope is now corroding in the oxidation of yesterday's flames -- and here he lies with it. All returning to the base elements of earth.

The German fighter plane, still armed but without an engine, shows the telescopic strut of the right landing gear is still shiny from recent use. But the plane is without a means of movement or purpose.

Not unlike the young soldier lying dead in front of it.

Ken Cashion