When you are standing at your hero's grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.
Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done;
And you have nourished hatred harsh and blind.
But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son. Reconciliation, Seigfried Sassoon. November, 1918.
It's a troubling thing to reconcile the fact that I am not the man I was before I went to war. That life, whatever it's troubles or glories, can never go back to the way it was. There is no return to innocence. Once we've eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, it is done. And
knowledge can be a personally terrible thing. It means recognising bitter truths that we ignored before. It means knowing harm, knowing death and pain and the sight of flesh burned to bone. It means knowing that you've killed men barely old enough to not be considered boys.
And it's difficult. It's difficult to accept that you cannot return -- because it's what we so wish for. It's difficult to admit that it wasn't all just a nightmare. It's more difficult still to recognise that there is nothing wrong with speaking about how terror feels. We cannot, and shouldn't keep it to ourselves, and there isn't anything wrong with...crying, if we need to. Because we cannot go back, we cannot forget, and the road ahead is uneven and filled with jagged rocks.