There's a war going on now, does anyone care?

Perusing through my dad's weekly DVD pics from the local library, I saw one called "The Trench" starring a then lesser-known Daniel Craig about a platoon of Tommies in the trenches in 1916. Despite feeling that the idea was stolen from me (I had started two years ago writing a script for an epic WWI movie set during the Battle of the Somme), the movie was quite interesting. There is a gripping seen where one of the younger soldiers is goaded into peering through one of the loops on the parapet of the trench to see the German lines. Through the hole which appears like a portal to a different land, is a field of green grass, vibrant in contrast to the drab and filthy interior of the trench. Only twice in the movie are our eyes treated to that pleasant verdant field, and twice it fools us with its gentle façade. It's not that the movie is a "must-see", much of the dialogue consists of raw recruit dialogue with the clichés of Limeys being inexperienced in bed, the clairvoyance of a battle-hardened sergeant (Daniel Craig), and a hotshot, jerky corporal (Danny Dyer from the Football Factory); it was more about the sacrifice of young men fighting overseas. Just as the Americans have not fought a war on their home soil since the Civil War, the English haven't either (not including Scotland), and theirs was fought more than 2oo years earlier.

So when I happened to come across a blog (http://wwar1.blogspot.com/) on the internet about a soldier's letters sent to his wife and brother from the front in France, I was immediately interested. Pvt. Harry Lamin's letters are timeless and universal for all soldiers writing to loved ones back home. These letters are posted on the site by his grandson, exactly 90 years to the day after they were penned by Pvt. Lamin himself in the trenches. With exactly one year left to the day for the war, we aren't sure if Harry Lamin survives. A radio interview of Lamin's grandson discusses more on the postings.

In the trenches: Royal Irish Rifles in a communications trench on the first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916

While the war today is not being fought in trenches, there is probably a great similarity in the sentiments of those fighting and their families at home. I won't pretend to really understand the daily fear and traumatizing moments, but quote my father, "If people knew what wounds smelled like and had to pick pieces of their buddies flesh from their face, maybe they would not be so ambivalent about this war." At least the trench provided a safe haven for the troops at the front. In Iraq, everyday is like the green fields of the Somme. At any moment an explosion could tear their life away. There was an article in the Boston Globe today about Marines returning from the "front" in Iraq and the survey they answered from a Globe writer. I thought the most telling response was that the soldiers felt that more than a third of the Boston Metro community was either unappreciative or unaware of the returning vets service for our country in Iraq. This is the first war in which the home front has not been responsible for bearing any brunt of the suffering of the front lines. The war is shielded from our population, available only in relics of news coverage in newspapers or posted as headlines in the web. How many more stories on Britney Spears were there this year than on the War in Iraq? It is Veteran's Day tomorrow, and I hope some people remember to honor those who serve and have served our country in a way unimaginable to most people in our country today. Unfortunately, war has been a part of humanity since our beginnings and although I do not support war as a bright option of diplomacy, and certainly don't support our leader's decisions to invade Iraq, the soldiers should be recognized for their brave conduct and sacrifices.

There is another good article about Veteran's Day on more than 1200 squares named in honor of local veterans of foreign wars that we pass on by unknowingly on our daily lives. And just to know, Veteran's Day was November 11, formerly known as Armistice Day, the date which the guns of World War One went silent.