Why I still keep writing about these misserable years.s!

George Santayana reminds us that the lessons of history are invaluable in determining the course of the future.:"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."

A couple of years ago a Canadian soldier walked in my office in Jamaica to sign up for a dive.We owned a diving business in Jamaica.I got to talk to him. He told me that he was on vacation with his family at Club Ambiance and had to go back to Iraq the following day coming back from this vacation. He told me that he had become a soldier because he thought it was so cool. He was very young man. He told me it was not so cool, reality is so different. It was horrible what he had seen in the few month's he was a soldier. He told me that he hoped that he would come out of this war in one piece, if he lived. He loved diving and liked to dive everyday, but a soldiers salary is not that great. We told him that he could dive with us every day, if he liked. He had such a good time. He was able to forget for a few days that he had to go back.He said to me:" when you are young you have no idea what war is all about and as a young child you like to be an hero, just like the ones you see on TV." On television they all look like hero's and that is what he liked to be. He was terrified that he would not come back from that hell in Iraq.
Yes, a lot of young people of to-day have no idea about what a war is all about.
A war only causes bereavement. Everybody loses and in the end, there is no winner.

I met another diver in Jamaica who was in Vietnam. He wrote a book. His name is Steve Fehrenbach.We became very good friends and Steve and his wife Debbie came to dive with us every year. The title of his book:" A simple soldier". He came back a very confused man. I read his book and I think everybody should. We are still friends with him. We know him now at least for 18 years. He too wrote this book for his family to give them understanding what he had gone through. Every young man coming back from an experience of the likes of Steve will never be the same. A war is a horrible thing.We live in a very greedy world.Mankind never learns their lessons. Life is so short.Live it to the fullest.

It's always the innocent who suffer the most.