War is no place for young women and men in summer

This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

The BBC has reported that the Russians have lost at least 25,000 soldiers in Ukraine, many of those killed were poorly trained and prisoners, who had been promised freedom - ‘some freedom’. Graves are appearing all over Russia but mainly east of the Ural Mountains, in far off places from Moscow and European Russia. 

We never hear figures of how many Ukrainian soldiers have been killed but they too have high losses. And besides the heaps of dead bodies, think of the thousands who have lost arms and legs, those blinded. 

What must it be like to get sick in a dirty trench? What must it be like for parents, their relatives and friends? Russians and Ukrainians killing one another, people they don’t know. 

In different circumstances they might well be chatting with one another, having a coffee or drinking beer, talking about their families, about the latest book they are reading or having a discussion about how the current qualifying Uefa Euro 2024 qualifying games are going. But none of that. They are murdering one another at the behest of a 72-year-old, who lives in spectacular luxury. 

It was Vladimir Putin who decided to invade Ukraine, just as it was Adolf Hitler who decided to invade Poland. 

All wars are complicated and there are myriad reasons that ignites the initial spark that sets it all aflame. But once the fire takes off the cruelty and savagery that ensues is beyond words.

It’s the end of June, the sun shines on Europe, a time for people to enjoy themselves, especially for young people to be able to release their energies under blues skies. 

This summer far too many young people are being killed and maimed for life. The story is gradually but surely disappearing off the front pages of our newspapers and the lead items on our television bulletins. And all the time the share price of the armaments industry is soaring. They are having a field day. 

I was reminded of the tragedy of the war in Ukraine last week having read a poem by American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019). 

The poem is called The Summer Day. She writes about the nature that is all about us, she asks who made the swan and the grasshopper. And then she writes this: ‘I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down/into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass/how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,/which is what I have been doing all day./Tell me, what else should I have done?/Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?/Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild precious life?’

Oliver paints a picture of wild abandon, a world where young people enjoy the now and dream about their futures. And that’s what it should be. Then think of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers these summer days maiming and killing one another. 

The Russians, forced to go to war because of the capricious will of Putin when they should be enjoying the summer days, and the Ukrainians defending their country, when they should be relaxing and working in the fields of Europe’s breadbasket.