![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/in-flanders-fields-706x1024.jpg\")
y name is Francis Toliver, I come from Liverpool \u2013 2 years ago the war was waitin\u2019 for me after school\n<\/i>
\n~ Christmas in the Trenches<\/i><\/p>\n
Oh m<\/i>y name is Francis Toliver, I come from Liverpool \u2013 2 years ago the war was waitin\u2019 for me after school
\n<\/i>
\n~ Christmas in the Trenches<\/i><\/p>\n
They were all just kids. They\u2019re always\u2026just kids. They grow up too quickly and they\u2019re taken from us too fast.<\/p>\n
100 yeas ago it was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. On this day 100 years ago, people cried and kissed in the\u00a0street, because it was over\u2026.it was finally finally<\/em> over.<\/p>\n Except then it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Except it never is.<\/p>\n I sometimes wonder if humanity knows how to be at peace, or if we always have some point we have to prove that renders us incapable of simply letting each other be. Instead we send our children to the slaughter, and we have now done it so often that it no longer is cause for celebration when they return, there are no more ticker-tape parades, there are no more \u201cPEACE\u201d headlines in the papers. It just \u2026keeps going.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard, in that light, to be the lark above the guns, to keep faith.<\/p>\n I still don\u2019t understand, I never will. I understand no more now than I did when I was that little girl standing in her party shoes in the mud. Perhaps I\u2019m not meant to. Perhaps I have simply\u2026become too na\u00efve in thinking that anyone could ever understand it, could ever change it.<\/p>\n But no. I can\u2019t think like that. I won\u2019t. Because for one thing, if I thought like that too long my Gran would come back and haunt me.<\/p>\n People gave up everything<\/em>. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, they gave up everything<\/em>. So that we could have what? I\u2019m not sure exactly. But I don\u2019t think they sleep. I don\u2019t think that this\u2026whatever it is we have\u2026I don\u2019t think this is what they wanted. I don\u2019t think they would be happy with us. I don\u2019t think they would be proud. They died to end it all, to end the conflict, stop the bloodshed\u2026and yet\u2026<\/p>\n Today is important because we remember those we\u2019ve lost. They will always<\/em> deserve that honour, and I will hold to it until the day I go through the veil. But you can remember their sacrifice without upholding the institution that required them to make it.<\/p>\n War has long since proven that it\u00a0serves nothing. It solves nothing. Death does not stop death.<\/p>\n 100 years\u2026it\u2019s long past time to hammer our swords into plowshares\u2026all of us, everywhere, not just in the western world.<\/p>\n Else, they will never rest, and their sacrifice will have been for naught.<\/p>\n But I know that perhaps, that is a dream that is not meant to be..<\/p>\n Just as I know that no one ever will be able to explain \u201cwhy\u201d to the little girl with the mud on her party shoes in the rain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh my name is Francis Toliver, I come from Liverpool \u2013 2 years ago the war was waitin\u2019 for me after school ~ Christmas in the Trenches They were all just kids. They\u2019re always\u2026just kids. They grow up too quickly … Continue reading