May may be a merry month overall, but today at least is a good day to put the merriment aside and stop to reflect. It never hurts to reflect a bit, and I think today is an especially good day for that.
What too many people don't know any more, but today is marks the 68th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. On this day in 1945, the Germans officially surrendered ending hostilities here.
I, for one, certainly do not gloat on days like today. Some people like to think it marks the winning of a war. Wars can't be won, they can only end. What's even better is if they never start.
The Second World War was a stupid war. Oh, sure, there are lots of folks who like to maintain that it was a "just" war; lots of others like to proclaim it was the last "just" war that America fought. The phrase "just war" is an oxymoron, like everything else that has to do with war. I'll go so far to agree that it was probably a necessary war. But wars only ever become necessary after the fact. If you do you're job right ahead of time, you can avoid wars ... at least most of the time. But, necessary or not, they're still stupid. You can't fix stupid.
For all of you who think I'm dishonoring all those who supposedly did all they did so that I can sit here and spout off such drivel, think again. I'm not dishonoring them. They did what they thought they had to do. When I was later faced with a war, I did what I thought I had to do. Other guys did other things. That's their business, just like what I did was mine. The war I was face with was even more stupid than the "big one", as my dad used to call it. This is another one of those cases where size doesn't matter.
Just so we're straight on this: all wars are stupid. It is simply impossible to have a smart war. No wars are good wars, for they always cause more problems than they solve. And, for those of you who like to believe that sometimes war is simply the last resort, well, it only is if you fail to solve your problems when you should.
You'd think after a few hundred thousand years of human history the penny would have dropped. Maybe we're not as smart as we like to think we are.
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