War Torn Children

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."
Aldous Huxley

War sucks a 'you know what,' you know where!' But I don't know of any other way of life.

In all my fifty years there's always been a war on this Earth, crying for affection, somewhere. And if there was a brief window of peace at a point, (probably by my own hallucinations) it was soon replaced and killed again with war. And when our 'big thinkers' of government decided there isn't quite enough wars abroad, they begin one in our homeland, ironically under the guise of saving the children; against their own people. (Drug War)

But the truth is; there was never a time that peace, true peace, encompassed this Earth totally and all lived in harmony with ourselves, and with nature. The only time peace gets votes is in time of war. And, by the way, if there was suddenly peace that erupted in this land and swept across the globe, there wouldn't be jobs for all the service men and women when they got home, no matter what flag they were flying. The sad thing is, or one of them, we have the wherewithal to do peace instead of war, and always have. And it doesn't take an act of any bloody congress to achieve it.

"At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War."

"It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few."

"There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making."

-Major General Smedley D. Butler from his book 'War is a Racket'

"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity." -George Carlin

And most important, the children are most affected by a war.....duh! And they are the ones who least understand what's going around them.

But even in situations as sad and desperate as being a war zone, you can sometimes find rays of hope where people reach out to one another in a way that actually helps. One such way happens on every occasion that children in our country reach out to children half way round the world. This happens every day with the many school projects that help kids find one way to send some needed supplies, a letter of encouragement and give joy to the kids who are suffering from war.

These kinds of community service projects that teachers in thousands of school rooms all over have their children do, go far to help bring international understanding and hope between peoples. It really is safe to say that these outreaches do as often or more for the children extending the help as they do for the children to receive the packages from strangers far away.

For the children on the giving end of these community outreaches, the learning experience is invaluable. Many times the teachers will use an American solider someone knows, as a point of contact. That brave soldier can make sure the gifts sent by the children get to local children of the same age. If he can take some pictures or a video that can be sent, the excitement the givers of the gifts experience is electric.

Too often we all watch stories of atrocities or the suffering of war and that we cannot really hook up with what is going on because it is so distant and those people are not really connected to us. But when these children send presents to children suffering the affects of war, they gain a sense of connection, an empathy understanding that “brotherhood” or sisterhood with children far away who have the same hopes, dreams and daily needs that the kids in their classroom have.

For the children in a war zone, these packages are generally as much of a revelation as it is for the senders. They can evaluate the pictures of children who made the effort to send something only for them. All of a sudden these children don't feel alone. A simple gift can easily change a heart from one of hate to one of a child who has found a friend. We ought to be happy our teachers are helping our kids hook up with far-off children knowing that the result is our kids empathize with people suffering around the world. These lessons will make them better citizens of these communities, of their country and of the world once they are grown and raising children of their own.

In Afghanistan, about 10,000 people -- 2,043 of them civilians -- died in the fighting last year.