More Fragile Than We Realize

Flanders Fields (U of Texas NROTC photo)

When I was in high school World War I was ancient history. (It's disconcerting to realize that WWI was as remote to baby boomers as Vietnam is to the teens of today.)

Despite its seeming irrelevance to the Sixties--we lived in the Space Age and they flew single-engine aerodromes--studying World War I was a requirement back in our day.

All Quiet on the Western Front brought home the pointlessness and horror of trench warfare.

Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August chronicled how communication missteps and tangled alliances caused a World War to erupt from a ducal assassination that triggered a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.

Violence experienced on a national scale is inconceivable to present-day Americans. World War I reminds us that life and peace are much more fragile than we realize.