War kills, traumatises and is senseless

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

The Financial Times Weekend newspaper of January 22/23 carried a number of stories on the Russian Ukraine conflict. It also printed a map of the relevant areas of Ukraine and Russia. So many of the place names are soaked in the blood of World War II.

Kursk is right on the middle of the map. It was there in 1943 that the world’s biggest ever tank battle took place. Also on the map are Lviv, which the Germans overran and slaughtered its inhabitants. There too is Volgograd, the great city on the River Volga, which was called Stalingrad from 1925 to 1961, during which time it was named after Russian dictator Josef Stalin. In 1961 it was named Volgograd. From 1589 to 1925 it had been called Tsaritsyn, presumably named in honour of the tsar.

Last Thursday was International Holocaust Day, remembering the unthinkable evil Germany committed, and this Wednesday is the anniversary of the ending of the battle at Stalingrad in 1943. Many historians recognise the battle at Stalingrad as the turning point in the war.

But the price of that battle, that lasted five months, was horrific, almost two million people were killed or maimed alone at Volgograd/Stalingrad. The violence and brutality of war is simply not acceptable. Think about it, killing or maiming someone, with whom you might in different circumstances be best friends, work colleagues, lovers. Why do we ever let it happen?

I’m following what’s unfolding on the Russian Ukrainian front these days and I’m scared. Yes, history repeats itself but it’s a nonsense to think that it repeats itself in an exact similar format.

We hear of the 100,000 Russian troops that have been moved to the Ukrainian border, some from as far east as Siberia. The talk is of armies, battalions, regiments. But every one of those 100,000 soldiers, plus the Ukrainian soldiers are the children of mothers and fathers. The majority of women and men in both armies are young people, with sisters and brothers, wives/partners, with children at home, waiting for their mothers and fathers to come home safe and sound. And parents waiting for their children to return home.

They are simply cannon fodder and will be used to suit the machinations of those in power. The army leaders and their political masters will be flown around the world in exquisite luxury while the fighting soldiers will experience the cold wet, dirt and grime of war. It’s highly unlikely that the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov or his US counterpart Antony Blinken will be rushed to a field hospital having to have a leg amputated. That’s the reality of war. And all for what?

Only last week a German friend of mine told  me that her mother’s favourite brother died in a battle in one of those cities marked on the Financial Times’ map. ‘His wife, who had a small baby when he disappeared, waited all her life for him to return,’ she told me. There were millions of soldiers on both sides with similar fates and for every one of them many traumatised family members.

War is senseless. It’s sobering to read in books and archives the uncensored letters soldiers in battle write home to their loved ones.