The Cycle of War

My family has been in various armies for at least 3,000 years. 

The Kiyani (or Kayani) clan goes back to the first Persian empire. We fought in the Persian armies, faced the Mongols, and battled for control of parts of what is today India and Pakistan. 

In WW2, my maternal grandfather served in Burma. I have aunts and uncles who were army doctors and combat veterans as recently as the early 2000s. Many of the broader Kiyani clan still serve today. 

When we say "Lest we forget," I sometimes wonder if we truly even understand what we are supposed to remember. Today we honour the veterans, but I don't think we really honour what they went through. Many veterans don't call themselves heroes and part of that is because war itself is not heroic. War is the result of people who would not or could not find a better way. 

Now I think about the rivers of blood that have been spilled. I think about what it was like to fight hand to hand, to swelter in a jungle far from home, to watch your friends suffer and die, and to be captured and tortured yourself. 

I think about the war crimes, the screams, the increasingly terrible weapons, and the survivors and what they carry. 

This is generations of trauma to be processed, and generations more to come because, sadly, we do forget.