Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

OPINION

War and peace

By Amy Calder acalder@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

I cannot get the image out of my head.

Select images available for purchase in the
Maine Today Photo Store

It's of my grandfather, Ross Calder, running through the Argonne Forest in France, carrying a fellow soldier whose arms and legs had been shot off.

When my father, 92, told me the World War I story this week, I was stunned. Speechless.

I had not heard it before.

How sad and tragic to think of a family member having gone through such trauma. And of the poor wounded man he was trying to save, being swung to and fro as my grandfather carried him at his side in a sort of handheld sling.

"Did his friend survive?" I asked.

My father, brow furrowed, shook his head.

"I don't know."

My dreams are haunted by this vision of war.

My sadness today is compounded by the fact that I never met my grandfather, who died before I was born, from tuberculosis and complications from being mustard-gassed in the war. He was only 52.

I know all the logical reasons why we go to war -- why countries fight with one another over territory or religion or violence or whatever.

Last week, I watched the film "The Hurt Locker," about soldiers in Iraq who are part of a special bomb-disarming unit. The film is an eye-opener for someone like me who knows about war only remotely.

It is hard to watch. It's frightening, sobering. I vowed never to look lightly upon anyone in uniform and to acknowledge that there's so much more going on in their minds and hearts than I will never know or understand.

I recently read "Full Fathom Five," a book written by Maine author Mary Lee Coe Fowler, about her real-life search for information about her father, a submarine commander whose sub was lost at sea in World War II, before she was born.

After he died and her mother remarried, there was no talk about her father in their household; the topic was forbidden.

Only after her mother died a few years ago did Fowler start an exhaustive search for information about her father, whom she eventually got to know through military records, people who knew and served with him, and old family friends. She virtually recreated a vision of a man she had never met but grew to love through her research.

My niece's husband is a sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, spending long periods of time away from his wife and children. When he is home, he focuses on enjoying life and does not talk about his war experiences.

But how must it be for him? How was it for Ross Calder or Jim Coe, Fowler's long-lost father? What fears must they have faced each day? What worries? And what memories did they carry, some no doubt too painful to revisit, let alone discuss?

War is a story we hear about, a photo we see in a newspaper, a movie we view on a screen. In a country where we take for granted that strolling down the sidewalk is a safe activity, we don't imagine conflict unless we are alerted to it in a personal way.

I remember my late father-in-law telling me a story about his being the first to enter a concentration camp in Germany during World War II. People there lay dead and dying; he scooped crackers out of his pocket to feed a starving man who, after consuming them, immediately vomited, it had been so long since he had eaten.

My paternal grandmother was a Quaker, and while I was too young to understand Quakerism when I was a child or talk with her about her religion, I think I've assimilated some of the Quaker philosophy against war and any kind of violence.

I cling to the simple, yet profound words from the Dalai Lama that "violence breeds violence," in wishing the madness to stop.

I think of the words from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, who, watching an angry crowd tormenting two con men, observed simply, "human beings can be awful cruel to one another."

This week, as I stood in line at an ice cream stand in Skowhegan, I listened to two young men in a group of 20-somethings discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They were arguing about which side was right and which was wrong.

They raised their voices. One of their friends apologized for the outburst, explaining that the two were friends but disagree on this particular subject. They fight, but ultimately reconcile.

"One is in the military and the other is a history major," he said.

"It's OK," I replied. "These discussions are good."

I was encouraged by their unjaded and enthusiastic attention to important issues.

And for a fleeting moment, I imagined that conflicts could be ended, without war.

Amy Calder has been a Sentinel reporter 22 years. Her column appears here Saturdays. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com