A Christmas Truce

Actually garth brooks did a song about it called belleau woods. Its a pretty good song

Too bad more families cant take a temporary truce for Christmas.

Fraternization events happened in the first year of WWI, and all much to the consternation of the officer corps. Anti-fraternization actions by the officer corp got so weird that a cat was executed for crossing the lines (he was being fed by both sides across the no-man's-land).

As the war dragged on, such events largely stopped. I theorize that that occurred since in the first year, men were still men and remembered their civility. The first Christmas probably gave them hope that all this silly war business would soon end and they could go back to their homes and families. But, after that, brutality and dehumanization took over.

As for myself, my war never ends, and there are no holidays in it that ever give me hope that it will ever end. That's why I'm as mean and nasty on Christmas day with the wrapping paper a-flyin', as on any other day of the year. I still recall being asked a few days before Christmas in 2001 (with the obscene war talk blaring out of the radio in the background) about what I was doing for the holidays, and I said:

"I don't feel particularly festive. Why do you?"

Like I said, mean and nasty. But that's the world we live in, in the declining age of the American Empire.

So why take the decline of the empire so seriously? It's the evolution of humanity. Hopefully each generation learns from the previous generations' mistakes. Sometimes you gotta hit rock bottom to get your footing.

The industrial governing complex is based on obsolete principles and obsolete technologies.

But the real problem I see is that why isn't this story repeated more often. In schools, in the media, amongst casual conversation? That's the most disturbing thing about it.