Personal Reflection: War is Hell
War is often described as the greatest human tragedy, an immense cost in lives lost and resources wasted. In my lifetime I’ve experienced at least a dozen or more wars and, if you would indulge me, peering back into history, countless wars have been fought, all with devastating consequences and very little resolution to the underlying cause of them. The futility of war leads to violence upon violence, destruction upon destruction, resulting in perpetual loss and very little gain (if any).
The description of war as "hell on earth" resonates deeply with me. One particular war I’d like to share with you.
I remember my Dad before and after Vietnam. He was such a fun-loving, exuberant light in my life before Vietnam. Afterwards, he came home a “Closed Man.”
My Dad faced physical and psychological horrors: the constant threat of death, the sights and sounds of violence, and the moral dilemmas of taking life to survive. He rarely spoke about his time in Vietnam, probably because the trauma of dismembered bodies and streams of blood flowing in the streets were too much to process, and he, in his humanity, didn’t want to perpetuate that burden with us, his family.
War is Hell. It upends lives, devastates economies, and erases centuries of culture and history in the blink of an eye. But this idea isn't just about the visible destruction—it also speaks to the inner torment experienced by those caught in conflict… like my Dad. He took those memories to the grave in hopes of burying them there… permanently.
From an academic viewpoint, which I absolutely abhor because war is anything but academic, this topic has been explored through literature, art, and film—expressions that attempt to capture the depth of human suffering. From Wilfred Owen’s stark poetry in Dulce et Decorum Est to Picasso’s haunting masterpiece Guernica, these works remind us of the true cost of war in ways that words alone cannot.
Have you seen the movie Saving Private Ryan? My wife and I were sitting in a nearly empty theater for the afternoon matinee showing. As the film began to roll, the shear carnage depicted in the first 15 minutes were almost intolerable. In fact, so much, that my wife had to leave the theater.
A veteran was sitting at the end of our row. I could audibly hear him hyperventilating as his eyes pooled with tears, crying under his labored breath. The impact of those short, 15-minutes raised the specter of HELL for him.
Yet, even these works of art and literature cannot express the depth and breadth of despair, the shear horror that war is… and the absolute need for us, as a human race, to eradicate it from our collective vocabulary.
War is hell. It unravels everything we hold dear, not only obliterating the landscape, but ripping apart the fabric of human existence itself.
The aftermath of war lingers like smoke—choking, suffocating, impossible to escape. The streets may be rebuilt, but they silently echo with the cries of those who will never walk them again. And those who survive, they also cry because they have no legs to walk.
The earth will heal, but the soil remembers the blood it drank. Survivors wear invisible scars, etched by sleepless nights and the endless, ringing in their ears... that nagging question: Why?
And then we question the Questioner. Such a hollow question…” why?” We say, “Why even ask Why? You will never get a satisfactory answer because there isn’t one.”
Asking "why" about war is less about finding a satisfactory answer and more about giving grief, pain, and confusion a voice, kind of like what I’m doing now… expressing the grief, pain, and confusion about my Dad. It helps me process the unthinkable and acknowledge the scars left in him.
The act of questioning becomes a form of catharsis, a way to make sense of the senseless, even when no answer could ever suffice.
It helps me create space for reflection. It helps me connect with others, show that I care. In a way, "why" is my hand reaching out across the chasm of despair, touching the hand of someone else going through this pain.
So yes, “War is hell.” But if nothing else, it has taught me that peace is not just the absence of war—it is the reclamation of all that war tries to destroy.
