William Tecumseh Sherman is credited with saying “War is hell.” But those words followed a more profound thought, coming from him. “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded, who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.” Since not a one of us has yet seen the actual, capitalized Hell, we must rely on Biblical descriptions of it, and when things on planet Earth seem as bad as they can possibly be, we assume that’s pretty close to the real thing. The images coming out of Ukraine are heartbreaking. In fact, the image from any war, anywhere, anytime, tells a story of terror, of death and destruction, of the loss of loved ones and possessions, and often the loss of freedom. All too often the victims have lost hope as well. The victor, somehow, since he won, presumes his cause is just; and the loser, on the other hand, still thinks he was right. It becomes the Status Quo, which someone has said is Latin for “The mess we’re in.”
I’m reminded of the old saying, “You can’t legislate morality.” Of course, you can’t, especially since we can’t agree on what is moral and what is immoral. We seem to have changed the Golden Rule to “Do unto others before they can do unto you.” Which ends in warfare, on land and sea and air, and in our streets and homes and even our churches and government facilities.
This latest war, while not on our homeland, seems ever so close. I was a child during the Second World War, and those memories have remained with me. I vividly recall that gnawing fear as we pulled our shades during blackouts. Papa listened to the news on the radio every night, and never discounted the warnings that we might be bombed. He had escaped the draft for the First World War, but he surely had memories from those war stories. There was no television to show us the cities in Europe as the people fled to bomb shelters and the buildings fell around them. I also recall my anxiety every time I heard a plane overhead. If we were away from home, we would see military convoys on the highways. And we drove to Ft. Oglethorpe one Sunday and saw the German prisoners of war behind a fence, staring at us as we drove slowly by. (I was too innocent to feel uneasiness with my last name, Snyder, Americanized from the German Schneider.) A Blue Star banner hung in our living room window, announcing to passers-by that the mother in the home had two sons away at war.
Americans have been through wars since then, and those battles were observed in our living rooms, but often long after the fact. Today is different. We watch the misery in real time. We see the babies and the elderly, the families in shock. We even see those in command and hear the firsthand reports. In technical terms, it’s a new kind of warfare, but in reality, it’s the same as always. History, as ever, is repeating itself.
Sherman also penned these words: “The legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace.” I think it is fair to say that Sherman never met, and never imagined, such a leader as Putin. Times may have changed, but a “more perfect peace” is still to be desired.
Walker Knight, a Baptist journalist, died at age 95 in 2019. I met him once, and came to watch for his writings in various publications. I saved a copy of a poetic essay titled “The Peacemaker.” He tells of his prayer for peace, and of the reply, “Can there be peace in My world if there is no peace in you?” Knight reminds us that history knows little of the word – humans tell their story in war; they have few words for peace. In all 50 centuries of recorded time, the brief intervals of peace … all the days and years together … humans have known but 300 years of silence on the battlefields. His narrative continues with a profound declaration about peace. “It’s not just hating war, despising war, sitting back and waiting for war to end. It’s not just loving peace, wanting peace, sitting back and waiting for peace to come. Peace, like war, is waged.” Peace plans its strategy, encircles the enemy, marshals its forces and storms the gates. It gathers its weapons … love, joy, goodness, longsuffering. It pierces the defense with arms of truth, honesty, patience, and prayer, using a strategy of safety, welfare, security, and happiness. And his challenge is tough. “The forces of peace are the Children of God.”
He ends with a Biblical challenge. “I am to love my enemy, do good to those who hate me, turn the other cheek.” Sound familiar? Sound impossible? And most certainly thought-provoking.
Aaron Burr is reported to have said after his duel with Alexander Hamilton, “The world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.” How sad. And is the world not wide enough for all of us to live together in peace? I guess not. Each of us must live with our own version of peace. After all, what do little old ladies in their eighties know about war and peace? Only that it was written by a Russian!
Juanita Hughes is the City Historian of Woodstock and a regular columnist for the Cherokee Tribune. This column was originally published in the Cherokee Tribune.
