The Last War - Nov 9 2025

 

The Last War

Nov 9 2025

There is life and death,

when survival

justifies anything.

There is seeing red,

because the heat can rise

in even the best of us.

And there’s no denying

that there are violent men

who strike out just because,

either taking joy in it

or feeling little

beyond the brutish urge. 

Are they exceptions

or are they us,

beneath our thin smiles

of house-trained civility?

Are their brains wired wrong

circuits crossed

signals blocked?

Are their frontal lobes shrivelled up,

inhibitions interrupted?

Or were they badly raised;

uncared for and unloved,

the better angels

beaten out of them?

But when you see how war breaks

the men who fight

 — how dreams turn to nightmares

and drugs become a crutch;

how spouses suffer,

children get punished, 

and a gun to the head 

ends up the last resort —

you will agree

that war is unnatural,

and violence, even for a just cause

does battle

with our common humanity. 

Nevertheless, we stumble into wars

and harden into fighters; 

civilian soldiers

and brothers in arms,

dutiful men

in wars of necessity.

And then, once a year

we honour them

on this Day of Remembrance.

Even though it’s hard to remember

if you weren’t actually there

in the sturm und drang of war.

Because memory

handed down

becomes a bloodless anecdote,

then handed down again

a fish story

told by old men

about the one that got away.

And later, a fairy tale

more Disney than Grimm;

sanitized

sentimentalized

and softened by time.

There are the veterans

who don’t speak the unspeakable

but keep it to themselves.

The movies

that glorify our side

while dehumanizing theirs,

as if a bright red line

divided evil from good.

And the novels

that either bowdlerize the horror

or make it seem heroic,

ignoring the consequence

for shell-shocked veterans

who soldiered on,

never knowing how

to unburden themselves. 

Who became numb to death

even their own.

Who suffered the moral harm

of killing others

much like themselves,

as well as the guilt 

of having been spared.

Who watched 

as friends died in their arms,

then had to sift the earth

for body parts

before digging makeshift graves.

So memories are lost

the horrors buried.

Even the historians

fail to capture war, 

putting out books

that weren’t even meant to be read;

written

with academic detachment 

in dry scholarly prose.

So history repeats itself

because we never seem to learn,

no matter how sincerely we declare

that war is hell

and there are no winners.

After all, isn’t there always a war

somewhere in the world?

And even though some of us may have been spared

by luck and geography

and the accident of birth,

there’s not a single generation

that has known peace

or likely will.

The Great War, 

the just wars,

the war to end all war.

Which it didn’t, of course.

And perhaps the last war,

when the button is pressed

and weapons of mass destruction

rain down like poison gas

on the killing fields of Ypres, 

Zyclon-B

from the shower-heads of Auschwitz.

A bloodless death,

but just as deadly. 

When no one will remember

because no one will be left.

When all the memories

of every war

will be lost for good.

I used to write an annual Remembrance Day poem, the only “occasional” poem I permit myself. But let the tradition lapse. Perhaps because it felt presumptuous: who am I to pontificate on war, veterans, and suffering? And perhaps because it seemed futile, repeating the obvious: what more could I say; what difference does it make?

There has been much written about PTSD and the suffering of veterans: high rates of suicide, addiction, spousal abuse. War breaks even the strongest men.  It comes to seem more and more that although war has always been with us, violence is not natural and humankind is not innately violent. The survival of humanity is not because of strength and power, it’s because of cooperation and community: evolution has inclined us to peace and conciliation, not violence. Darwinian “fitness” can mean more than winning battles of strength. 

And, of course, there are no winners in war. Especially since it has become more deadly. Right now, Sudan, Ukraine, and Gaza come immediately to mind. While Trump — in his usual ignorant, bullying, and capricious way — has mused about resuming nuclear testing, of all things! (Fortunately, with the memory of a goldfish and focus of a gnat, he’ll let it go and move on to his next outrageous act.)

It might strike you as odd when I write “sift the earth for body parts”. But I have an image in my mind of men in Israel after a suicide bombing who — according to strict Jewish law — scour the ground for body parts to be identified and buried according to customary practice. I also think of all wars, when dead bodies must be disposed of; if not out of reverence or religious dictate, then for reasons of hygiene. I think especially about WW1:   the blood of men and horses mixing on the battlefield; perhaps the mutilated body parts of man and beast indistinguishable.

I have been personally spared from war, raised in the golden interval after WW2 in a mostly peaceful and prosperous West: a happy accident of birth and geography. But my generation hasn’t been spared from war, and there seem to be more of them than ever. And often, for even more stupid reasons. 

Remembrance is hard if you weren’t there. When the last veteran is gone, it will become even harder. And the last war? The poem says all that needs to be said; I have nothing to add.