I was a war baby. Mum and Dad were married in England at the end of World War II. A year or so later I came into the world. I heard a lot about war during my childhood, though in retrospect it was heavily sanitized versions of what happened. I do remember very clearly hearing my mother describe the buzz bomb attacks on London. I gasped at the tale of Dad's rear gunner dying in his arms, the victim of a German fighter plane's gun.
I was in grade school the next time I focused on war. That was during the cold war crisis in the early 1960's. Air raid sirens became part of the weekly routine in Montreal. I prayed a lot that all this scary stuff would go away.
Then as a teen I actually heard and saw the horrific devastation wrought by the Quebec terrorists who were bombing post office collection boxes to make their point about political change in that troubled province. The crumpled body of an innocent postman is seared in my memory forever.
Vietnam, the Gulf War, the Bosnian War and countless other 'small' wars traipsed across my consciousness as I moved from adolescence to adulthood. None of it made any sense to me then, nor does it now. I knew people who had served and died in those conflicts. I knew their widows and children.
Living With Terrorism
In 2001 the 9/11 attacks hit much closer to home. How safe can we be if these crazed people can exploit our open society's vulnerabilities? As parents and teachers we have an obligation to put terrorism into perspective. Young children have no sense of perspective and cannot analyze war as we adults can. Like talking about sex, we must give out simple facts when the questions are asked. We must patiently explain why war happens and what the possible outcomes might be. Young teenagers can probe and analyze events and the root causes. Juniors and seniors need to understand that freedom is not 'free'. It requires constant vigilance, nurturing and maintenance. They need to understand that millions of people in other countries do not understand the American reasons for threatening war on Iraq. They need to be given a solid understanding of other cultures besides our own.
Page 2...The Causes of Terrorism
