A soldier's body has been found and identified after being buried in the mud of Flanders for 92 years. Private Richard Lancaster was among the first to die in the first Battle of Ypres which saw an estimated 238,000 casualties in Oct-Nov 1914. But the real carnage came in July through November of 1917 when an estimated 568,000 men were killed or wounded. There were an estimated 950,000 casualties here at three major battles throughout the Great War.
Whenever I am reminded of the huge and senseless casualty numbers of WWI, I can better understand how a continent of people could lose their faith in a good and loving God but WWI is not the only reason for the secularization of Europe. It was just one bloody event in a chain of events as a people fell away from Christianity and brought calamity onto themselves.
History should tell us something.
1 comment:
WW1 is a classic example of military leaders (and civilian) that lose track of the goal of winning the war and ending the conflict as quickly as possible. The word; "stalemate", became famous in households of the day. The war is still studied in military academies for that very lesson.
It is my great hope that our present day military leaders have not lost track of the required defeat of radical islam. Our troops need to be actively used to "advance" the defeat, not to make Iraq or the middle east "stable". To do otherwise is to commit our boys and girls to a slow-bleeding attrition. Just as you suggest, Whit, there is a civilian lesson here; WE MUST REQUIRE OUR LEADERS TO WIN, TO WIN DECISIVELY, TO WIN ACTIVELY - NOT IN A "1984 FOREVERWAR" WAY, BUT IN A DEVASTATING AGGRESSIVE WAY!
I'm afraid that my fellow civilans, most of them having not served in the military, just don't get it!
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