This is the time of year, almost above any other time of the year, most people give the idea of peace some serious thought. Our holidays even allude to that ideas of " peace on earth " and that seems to be across the board. Does anyone who is sane wish for anything else? Yes I know governments and perhaps big business finds war to be a profitable thing, but for the average man and woman who is engaged in that war the vast majority of them will tell you that they would wish peace would break out everywhere.
I want to relate a peace story to you,one that actually happened, no fantasy no warm fuzzies, but a true peace story that happened during one of the darkest times in this modern worlds history.
Some of you may be familiar with the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 during the beginning of WW1, for those of you who are not I will give a brief telling of the story.
Somewhere near Ypres, Belgium on or about Christmas eve 1914, approximentaly 100,000 troops along the western front, these were mainly Scottish, German ,French and Belgian troops, agreed to a cease fire for Christmas. A truce or ceasefire was not that unusual because they were so close to each other, sometimes as close as 30 yards, that they could send messages back and forth. What made this so amazing, at least in my humble opinion, was the massive scale of it. One hundred thousand troops spread over many miles who had been engaged in the madness of killing each other came to a very abrupt halt. In many places even the artillery stopped firing. As one soldier described it " it was an eerie kind of silence". It is said that the German troops put candle lit Christmas trees up on the top of their trenches and started singing Christmas songs and eventually they were joined by the Scotts and the French as well. One telling of the story has a French Opera singer standing at the top of his bunker, in full view of "the enemy" singing "O Holy Night" to the pleasure and applause of all who heard him.
In other places along the lines the troops actually came out of the trenches and exchanged gifts, buried there dead side by side and had memorial services for all the fallen. There is even an unofficial story of the French and Germans playing a game of football ( soccer ) where the Germans won 3-2.
All along the lines men who had been trying to kill each other before, came to understand that the "enemy" was no different then they were, they just wore a different uniform. It is also said by some that this ceasefire lasted a lot longer in some spots then in others, with men and officers on both sides very reluctant to start the killing again.
The stories are varied as to what happened and the effects, but there was no doubt, at least for a little while that "peace" broke out in that horrible place. The powers that be from all sides had the proverbial cow and ,sadly,they went back to the madness of killing each other.
Some of you may be thinking that this was easy for them to do because they shared, at least, the same religion. I would disagree for 2 reasons. One; They were constantly being told that their enemies were evil and corrupt and that it was their "Christian duty" to stop the spread of this evil. This was told by priests on either side. Second would be my own war time experience.
I was a 37 year old husband and father of 3 children at the beginning of the Iraq war. I carried pictures of my children and my wife through all those dark days and sometimes it was those pictures that kept me going.
We weren't in trenches but many times we found ourselves on trash heaps outside of various villages and cities or behind a freshly plowed trash heap mixed with sand as a defensive posistion or parked right next to open cesspools. The filth and garbage was horrendus and we were constantly being assaulted by flies. I can tell you for a fact that I went 57 days without a bath and I discovered just how badly I stank after I finally got a chance to get clean. So I have a basic understanding of what those who lived in the trenches experienced.
It was on a patrol one day just outside of a city where earlier we had experienced some heavy fighting and casualties, that I met an Iraqi man and his family. Remember this is in the beginning of this long war, we did little more then shoot and move during that whole time so while I saw people I had not met any of them.
Our patrol came to a halt outside this city, while our recon guys went out to scout, and we set up a defensive perimeter to wait for their return. There were children everywhere. Picking over rubble for usable bricks, pouring through trash to look for anything that might be worth saving and, very cautiously, approaching us.
You have to understand, even something as simple as that can set you on edge, when you don't know what to expect and you see everyone as a potential enemy. Having said that we let the kids get closer. We also noticed that among the children that there were some adults, but because they didn't appear to be a threat and they were only approaching us to get some food, we didn't worry...too much.
During this time I noticed a man with 2 children,one was a small boy that he was carrying and the other was a girl who was about the same age as my daughter, and she was wearing a pink dress with ponytails bouncing from her head.
I don't know what it was that he saw in me that made him approach me, but while his daughter was bouncing around from Marine to Marine , he came directly to me and we started "talking". I did not speak his language and he spoke very little English, but between hand motions and a few words, I found out that he was from the village that was out side of the city , which I could see in the distance ,and that they had been hit very hard during the fighting and that they were looking for food and what ever else might be salvagable. He also told me that the two children were his, which I had kind of assumed. I then proceeded to show him the pictures of my wife and children and we discovered that despite apparent differences we had much in common. Not once did we discuss politics nor, other then the damage to his village, did we discuss the war. We were simply two family men put in one very bad situation by people, who would never know the fear of war or of never seeing your family again.
I guess that would really be my point, we were bonded together by our very humnanity. It had nothing to do with our religions, it certainly was not about politics, we were two men with families who shared many of the same goals and fears that all parents face.
I think that this is a lesson that can be learned from the Christmas truce of 1914 and from my own experience.
All of us are human. We have fears and desires, hopes and dreams and it is up to us to bring about a true and lasting peace. For a little while it happend in Belgium during one of the bloodiest wars in history and it happened between 2 men in Iraq. If it can happen then it can happen now but only if we all want it to be.
To quote an Irish song "There were Roses" " the ones who give the orders are not the ones to die, it's Scott and McDonald and the likes of you and I.
At the top I have included a link to Walter Cronkite and the Mormon tabernacle choir giving a rendition through music and words of what happened in 1914
Let there be Peace.
Shalom,
Ignacio
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