I don't think we have to have a personal relation to a life lost to understand that something terrible has taken place, especially in the context of war.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The idea that somebody who has done something horrible in a war is not willing to talk about it for 32 years is hardly a shocking idea. Quite the contrary.
When we dwell on the enormity of the Second World War and its victims, we try to absorb all those statistics of national and ethnic tragedy. But, as a result, there is a tendency to overlook the way the war changed even the survivors' lives in ways impossible to predict.
It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.
To hear of a thousand deaths in war is terrible, and we 'know' that it is. But as it registers on our hearts, it is not more terrible than one death fully imagined.
Oftentimes, discussion of war gets flattened to a discussion of trauma.
We're living through a time where we are fighting wars fostered by politics, admittedly not on the same scale as the First World War, but with equally tragic realities for our soldiers and their families.
To be sure, those who are actually engaged in combat - those who actually see the maimed bodies and mourning mothers - struggle more than the rest of us to make sense of the reality of war.
War does horrible things to human beings, to societies. It brings out the best, but most often the worst, in our human nature.
Our inability to relate to one another is very, very, very important. When we don't have it, we get situations like Bosnia.
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