one more posting for the day. Is their past our future? Or our future their past? Calumet Stone memories fade the years pass by old men and parades tarnished medals held high stained plaques on monuments and of stone part of the landscape weathered and stand alone does anyone stop and ponder their feat the hero's action in the day was so sweet where are they now as the years pass by is the story gone does anybody question why
A powerful post and very topical right now, @johntoennessen. Your post led me look up the various reasons why the US entered WW1 in 1917 following 3 years of neutrality. My personal take on your text is that there are still people (historians, novelists, journalists, re-enactment groups, etc.) who do remind us of the realities of past conflicts from time to time. But in general, I think time moves on and 'the gory details' of military conflicts become less clearly focused for each new generation. Unless they take the trouble to look them up. I think it's also true that 'popular history' tends to gloss over the 'gory details', heroic deeds and political motivations of past conflicts. We tend to have a nationality-centric view of past conflicts and emphasize our 'national heroes' while de-emphasizing the those of other nationalities. And the heroism and suffering incurred by other parties in the conflict.