Veteran: Enough war, let's make peace

This Memorial Day weekend I saw the National Memorial concert and on Monday attended the celebration in Elk Grove.

My father was in World War I. I was amazed at what they said about war.

Both Memorial Day programs had many stories of our soldiers who died and we need to remember them. None gave us figures of how many soldiers had died or wounded.

One skit was about the Korean War and a medic named Charlie who carried wounded soldiers off the fields and was eventually killed. This stirred up memories of my medical tech days at Newton D. Baker General Hospital in West Virginia. In Jan 1944 our 2,000-bed hospital opened up. Within a few months the beds were filled with wounded soldiers. This is just one reason I am against war.

There was another story to tell. They showed a young lady only 21 who had lost her husband in the Iraq war. She told of the pain she suffered. She was helped by another wife who had lost her husband in the Vietnam War. She had formed a group of wives who lost their husbands working to help the younger wives who lost their husbands. This was good news.

I was looking for numbers as a veteran. I and other veterans have talked to high school students in Elk Grove about World War II. One of us would mention that close to a half million Americans had been killed. Then another veteran would say 1.5 million were wounded. Did you know that close to 13 million Russian soldiers were killed? Over 50 million world wide died in this war.

What was this great thought that was spelled out in World War I? They showed soldiers dying in the fox holes, sleeping in the mud.

Than came this statement: "This was the war to end all wars." What happened? I had several discussions about war with the Boy Scouts who were there on Monday to help with the program.

Our world needs generals of peace who will stop these man-made wars.

Bob Pendleton

Elk Grove Village