War and Peace

("Field of Dreams - Flanders 1917", 2020, original oil) ("Field of Dreams - Flanders 2017", 2020, original oil) War and Peace Everyone wants peace, the irony is it takes war to get it. In this world of dog eat dog someone had to be defeated, someone’s life taken, for you to enjoy yours. You didn’t have to do it, it didn’t even have to be in your lifetime, but it had to happen. And in war everything is fair. Despite the rules of law and engagement we come up with before and after, when it comes to the fight anything goes. In other words, sometimes nothing is sacred. In times of peace people complain of conflicts involving innocent civilians but in war no one is innocent, no one not the target. Troops and armies, warriors and battlements may be the first line of defense but the civilians that support the armies are always the main target, always what waits behind the front lines, and what eventually becomes part of the spoils of conquest. When an army can’t hold or break through the lines of defense, it retreats and sues for peace, but when it can, it does. At least that’s the way we’ve always fought; Sherman in Georgia, Allied bombings of Dresden Tokyo,Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam and Iraq… And when the dust settles the victors get their way, and the vanquished submit, comply, survive, at least those civilized enough to adapt; peace after all, being the desired end of war. But for those who are conquered and refuse to submit, what is to be done about them? Whatever it takes. (12/8/23)