Ukrainian children went back to school this week. A little girl talked about learning in a hybrid program that will include in person teaching sometime and remote teaching most of the time. She spoke of having a bomb shelter to go to either way if attacks happen where she is on any given day. 

Try to imagine that! We certainly had duck and cover drills for bombs when I was in school. They were few and of course only practice. We often laughed and scoffed at the possibility that our training might one day become necessary. It’s good that it never became real because we had no bomb shelters, only our desks or maybe our own arms covering our heads afforded any kind of protection. The one time I ever felt a real need for such exercises was in an October of long ago during the Cuban Missile Crisis. A good number of my fellow students did not even show up for class in that scary moment. My teacher advised those of us who walked to school to get down in a low depression in the sidewalk or street and then cover our heads just as we had practiced. I remember snickering inside silently because there were no ditches or dips in the landscape anywhere along my route home. 

We have been unbelievably fortunate here in the United States. Aside from the American Revolution, the French and Indian War, the Civil War, or terrorist and shooter attacks we have lived in relative peace. I suppose some groups like our Black citizens might prefer to differ that life has been mostly serene. I understand how they continue to worry about racist attacks on them and how they have little recourse to protect themselves.  

I have never really thought much about the possibility of either traditional or guerrilla warfare taking place in our country. Still, even without actual experience I can see from photos and videos how horrifically war impacts even innocent people. I am riven in two by the war that continues in Israel and Gaza. Both countries are suffering with no end in sight in spite of countless efforts to broker a ceasefire or, even better, an end of the wars. 

I think of the children impacted by war. I grieve over the innocence of childhood that they have lost. I cry at the thought of little ones being frightened and on edge all of the time. They should not have to adapt to horrors so unfairly foisted on them. The want, the injuries, the disease that follows from humans warring with each other changes them forever. When no place is safe they lose a sense of security and trust. Their development is interrupted. They become little more than pawns being moved about by powerful men who can’t find a way to get along with their enemies. Everything that they know is being destroyed.

The little girl in Ukraine demonstrates how children adapt when their lives are not longer novel, but why should she have to pay for the sins of tyrants? Why should a little one in Gaza have live for almost a year now in a state of uncertainty, disease, hunger, violence and destruction. Why should Israeli children live in the fear that no place is safe anymore? What is in our human DNA that all too often brings out warmongering? What in the name of God could possibly make it right to be an aggressor, to kill people who have somehow become enemies?

I cry that children anywhere in the world are ever subjected to our worst and evil traits! I understand death and how it affects the young. Losing my father in a time of peace changed me forever, made me feel less secure, more anxious. Once we humans experience death and destruction for any reason we change. A bit of our psyches are battered and bruised as surely as though an abuser is beating us for what feels like no good reason. 

I can feel the pain of war unlike the way I laughed at the very idea that we really needed drills for attacks by enemies who did not even know us. The fighting makes me feel emotions that are horrific. I want to scream or cry or protest wars. I want the killing to stop. We have seen too much of it of late in between what we view in foreign nations and the vile aftermath of so many mass shootings. We must assess our humanity and wonder how or if it is even possible to maintain peace other forever. 

I cried this morning upon hearing about the people protesting in the streets of Israel. I cried at the thought of babies being paralyzed from polio in Gaza. I cried listening to the little Ukrainian student describing what schooling will be like. I cried when I heard of mass shooting or assassination attempts. I am so tired of crying and feeling helpless that any of it will ever change. Violence is hell for everyone.