Will we ever melt our weapons into plow shares and our precious metals into forks, knives, and spoons? Will we be perpetually driven to war for selfish reasons or state dominance? The blood shed by millions throughout history could have been better used to build bridges of peace, hope, and love.
On July 3rd, 1863 in the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the South charged over fields and across the Emmet Road to reach a small growth of trees where the Union stood with cannons and muskets. It was such a brutal loss of men, and yet, they marched forward to their deaths with courage beyond compare, each thinking their side was in the right.
It was brutally cold in December, 1944 as the power of the German army was diminishing, and thousands faced off against each other in the Battle of the Bulge. Many cried, many died, and so many met their Maker in a fox hole, in a forest where trees became weapons of war as they crashed down on our brothers, fathers, sons, and husbands. Frost bite, gangrene, and pneumonia were small prices to pay while the singing of “Silent Night” was heard across the battlefield on Christmas Eve that year. These soldiers were all thinking of home and a far better world while their loved ones slept in warm beds.
In 1945, Robert Oppenheimer said, “I am death!” as he watched the first atomic bomb explode over a New Mexico valley. Not even a bug or lizard remained, only the sand. Now, so many countries have nuclear capabilities and aren’t afraid to use nuclear bombs, including Iran, who is just two years away from their first bomb tests. It appears that the world is always one hour away from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to return.
It’s 1965 and America is beginning its ten-year war with the North Vietnamese in Ia Drang Valley, “the Valley of Death,” but this will not be like Custer’s Last Stand in our American West. Americans will be using helicopters instead of horses to surround the enemy from North Vietnam. It will be one of the most violent battles in United States history. Lt. Col. Hal Moore will promise his soldiers and their families that he “will leave no man behind…dead or alive. We will all come home together.” (movie-We Were Soldiers) Our fears of Communism and the lose of rich resources from the South East Asia pushed the United States and many countries before us to place bloodied feet “In Country.”
September 11, 2001 called many young men and women to serve our country against another fierce and new enemy, but this one was the terrorist of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless other nations. These terrorists wage a war with our minds, souls, and bodies, and they vow to kill everyone of us, “Infidels,” because only their god, Allah, is the one good and right god.
Our worst fears have come to pass as the most insidious of weapons, the assault rifle, has become the weapon of choice in the mass shootings here in America as our own people are killing us. No place is safe: schools, shopping centers, churches, parades, on our streets, and in our homes. These weapons are truly for the military and the police; they shouldn’t be in the hands of citizens who feel if these rifles are taken away from them, their rights are being infringed on. I declare, “Tell your self-pity statements to the school children and their parents, to those who seek peace in their churches for prayer and meditation, to those who run into department stores and are shot as they enter the stores, to those who want to bring joy and laughter with their pom-poms and instruments as they walk in parades, and to those who simply want to enjoy the out-of-doors. When did Americans stop hearing the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill?”
And then, there’s Russia trying to overthrow one of the most down-trodden countries in Eastern Europe, the Ukraine. Will we never stop seeing gluttonous, greedy, one-eyed Goliaths trying to kill the Davids of the world, whose only desire was to seek entrance to NATO, first and foremost, for protection? The Ukraine seeks military aid from the United States and other nations so that they won’t have to throw sticks and stones at the devil. Maybe Albert Einstein was right; in WWIII, we will fight with sticks and stones because those who survive the nuclear bomb won’t have much else to fight with.
The directions of mentally ill individuals who take the law into their own hands, the lack of state and federal gun control laws, and an out-of-control world where everyone cares about themselves more than others continue to build lies, hatred, greed, racism, violence, and love of man not God. I believe this new generation, who cries out for a better world, will be God’s answer to our prayers for peace. God knows when we are out-of-control and when things are controlled. He wants us to use our intellect for the betterment of man not to kill and maim anyone who disagrees with us or whose property seems more beautiful than ours. I keep praying that Isaiah 2:4 (KJV) will become our choice as individuals and as nations. “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” I believe if we take the time to listen, see, and touch each other, the world will become the Creation that God wants it to be.
Anna Hartt
