In 2006, just after starting this family history blog, I found a poem written out in the Knapp Family Journal 1916-1924, which is probably not original but a proximate version of the original poem called “When The War Will End.” Please take a moment to revisit this powerful, and yet funny, poem.
That was 2006. I was fresh back in the United States after five years spent living with bombs, terrorism, and war in the Middle East. War was on the horizon with Iraq and Korea, and we were already fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It’s 2011 and we are still fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now in Libya, with Syria, Iraq, and other countries vying for military action from the United States and others.
So I ask myself, just as they did so long ago right after the “Great War” which became World War I, when will the war end? When will we imagine a world a peace and do all we can to make it a priority, when hurting someone in order to control and dictate is the WORST thing anyone can do and society will not tolerate such behavior? When?
Maybe never, as history has proven time and time again. Maybe humans don’t know much more than war as a way of life. I’d like to believe there is more, but studying genealogy and the impact war has had on the lives of our ancestors, I fear that it will continue in the future. Don’t you?
Most Recent Articles by Lorelle VanFossen
- The Myths and Mysteries and Hunt for Nicholas Knapp
- The Perpetual Calendar
- GenSmarts: Reminder to Not Assume
- Gensmarts Saves Your Family History Research Life
- Digging Through Historical Newspapers Online
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