In 1914, during the First World War, soldiers along the western front participated in an unofficial cease fire, known today as the Christmas Truce of 1914. The week leading up to Christmas Day saw parties of German and British soldiers exchanging seasonal greetings and songs between their respective trenches. This exchange served to ease tensions between opposing forces, enough to allow soldiers on both sides to leave their trenches and meet in that middle ground known as no man's land.
On the western front of one of the bloodiest wars in human history, men exchanged gifts, food, and souvenirs with "the enemy". They told stories, sang Christmas carols, and played football (soccer)...TOGETHER. They gathered their dead, and held burial ceremonies...TOGETHER. And if it had been up to them the war would have ended that very day. But it wasn't up to them.
When the German and British high commands got word of the growing mood of "live and let live", they issued strict orders prohibiting such fraternization. What a shame that those front line soldiers, who ALMOST discovered the secret to peace on earth, chose to obey. Were the leaders of their respective high commands on the front line? Was it their lives in jeopardy? Did they ONCE pick up a gun and fire at another human being? NO! They sat in their cozy offices and barked orders at the men who did.
So close. Humanity came so close that Christmas day to changing everything. All they needed to win that war, and EVERY war to come, was one simple word...no. NO! I will not kill for you! I will not die for you! If war is so damned important to you, then YOU climb into these trenches and have at it! We're going home...to our families...to our friends...and that includes the friends we made here today!
But they didn't say no, did they? They crawled back into those trenches and started shooting at men they had, only hours before, played, talked, and sang with. And in doing so they damned their children; for it was their children who had to kill or be killed in the next world war.
Korea, Viet Nam, Kuwait, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, when will it end? When will we say "enough"? When will we tell the folks who start the wars that they're also going to have to fight those wars? Let those in the High Command lay on sand bags inside muddy trenches and shoot at men they know nothing about! Let the politicians and Joint Chiefs soil themselves in the mud and the blood. Let our sons and daughters spend Christmas with their families. If we, the people, could muster up the courage to say no, and every other nation's citizens could do the same, Christ could have His peace on earth. And the mothers of soldiers would never again have to live in fear on a day like Christmas.
