When faced with horrifying circumstances,
Humans will come to each other’s aid.
There is hatred, malice, disgust, sure,
But if we can help another to survive,
We will.
That is the goal,
Isn’t it?
To survive.
War
Ravages us,
Changes us.
But our humanity is what saves us,
Even if in brief moments.
In 1917,
During the first World War,
Russian and German troops
Who were fighting in the
Kovno-Wilna Minsk region
Of Russia
Were barraged by a pack of
50 fierce wolves
That had been forced
From their forest homes.
Without a spoken word,
Every soldier cast their guns
Not on each other,
But on the greater enemy.
However,
After the beasts had been
Slaughtered,
The soldiers resumed
Executing one another.
In 1865,
Two weeks after the Civil War,
The steamboat Sultana
Burst into flames.
Built to carry 376 passengers,
It was packed with 2,500 Union troops
Who were travelling the
Mississippi River
After being released from
Confederate prison camps.
Confederates
Who, two weeks prior, would have
Attacked the Sultana,
Rushed to aid the Union soldiers
When they heard the explosion.
They were burning.
They were drowning.
Confederates spent hours,
Sacrificing their lives
For the ‘enemy.’
The worst U.S. maritime event in history—
1,800 Union lives were lost.
But 700 were saved.
In 1944,
During the second World War,
Americans and Nazi troops
Were fighting the Battle of the Bulge
In 85 acres of the dense Ardennes Forest.
Lost and wounded,
Three young American soldiers
Wandered the forest for three days
And came upon a little cabin.
Inside was a German woman and her son.
They helped the Americans
Without question
And communicated in broken French.
The woman began to make a feast,
For it was Christmas Day.
At once, she heard a knock on the door.
It was four Nazi soldiers.
It was a crime to house the enemy
But she told the men
No shooting would take place in her home
On Christmas Day.
Once inside,
One of the Germans,
An ex-medical student,
Tended to the wounds of the Americans.
After dinner was made,
Everyone sat together and cried as they ate.
In the morning,
The Germans gave the Americans a compass
And a map
And told them which land was in
Nazi’s hands.
The soldiers shook hands
And went their separate ways.
In 1996,
Fifty-two years later,
The woman’s son—
Who had been searching endlessly
To see if any of the soldiers had survived—
Found one of the Americans.
He still had the compass and the map.
He said:
“Your mother saved my life.”
We strive to survive.
Almost every decision we make is made
To determine how to best survive.
If another is suffering in an instance,
We will show love
And compassion.
We save.
But we will also kill.
War is something that will exist as long as we do.
It is so terribly human.
Fighting and feuding
Over all manners of things.
We all carry fear,
Especially on the battlefield.
War on the outside.
War on the inside.
Humans love as equally as humans hate.
I want to believe that the world will know peace one day
Through our humanity,
But we are War.
Hope Houtwed is a fourth year student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. She is getting her B.A. in English with a certificate in Creative Writing and minors in French and Astronomy. She is from Grand Island, Nebraska and will be graduating in May 2020.
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