Reading

I am reading
Fiction and
Popular history
By women
Writers,
Fascinating
Perspective on
Life and what
Is viewed as history today.
So much greater
Concern today with
Material on women’s
Roles and children’s
Lives so unlike the
Military histories I am
Trained to analyze
Objectively without
Subjective digressions.
A more compassionate,
More human view of
Events and characters
In fiction or in war.
Hard for an old military
Historian to accept as
Histories dealing with war.
A civilian side of war,
Un-noticed except as a
Brief anecdote from
Thucydides to the late
1960s when judgement
Became passé and
Men at war struggled
With an enemy rather
Than their conscience.
A time before our
Chemical pollution
Made us mature
Physically earlier but
Intellectually much later
If at all though few
Would dare to
Say so out
Loud.
Or,
Perhaps
Analysis should
Be secondary to feelings
And conclusions kept
To suffering rather
Than strategy
Tactics and
Faults in
Planning battles
Campaigns
And Grand
Strategy,
A term seen
Today as pretentious
But the bedrock of any war.
Still, to each his or her
Own view of reality,
Who am I to
Speculate
On truth
In war.
I am
Only an
Aging armchair
General, a bathtub admiral,
An air commander of kites.
Time for a kinder
Gentler view
Of life and
History.