I’ve posted this picture before. It’s a Civil War graveyard in a village by the Ohio River.

Why am I posting this today.

Well, given the heated political rhetoric being thrown around these days, I have heard a voice or two muttering about civil war, on both sides of this polarized debate.

This is folly. Do these voices think that such a conflict will leave them unscathed?

The US Civil War was our bloodiest conflict by far. An estimated 650,000 Americans died as a direct result of the conflict, a sizable part of the country was razed and ruined, and the bitterness and echoes of the war are felt to this day (see controversy re: Confederate statues, etc.).

Unlike our present wars, which less than 1% of Americans have been involved with, a second US Civil War would lay its dead hand on every soul within this country’s borders.

What, have people been lulled into believing that war is some antiseptic thing fought far away by other people?

I guess the answer is yes; this makes me want to vomit.

Read history, folks. At the first battle of Bull Run, spectators lined up in their finery to view the fighting as if it was some sporting event. This went out of fashion in short order. Why? It really sucks to catch a .58 Minie ball to the face.

Some statistics.

Over fifty thousand casualties at Gettysburg. Twenty-three thousand at Antietam. Eighteen thousand at Cold Harbor. The dreary list stretches on, and no-one really knows for sure how many died. Kind of like Soviet battle statistics, they are loose estimates to the nearest ten-thousand.

This war wouldn’t be carried out by professionals in some far away village. No, it would be fought with a massive conscript force composed of the children of the people who speak with such bland, colorless language of war; it will be fought with the kids and loved ones of those who secretly wish for such a horrid outcome.

It would be fought in their front damn yards, and the kids will die in droves.

Having seen war, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. And I sure as hell don’t want it anywhere near me.

My Grandma used to say “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all.”

Wise words from a wise lady.

The motto of the US Army; “This we’ll defend.”

Ask yourself what “This” consists of for you. Then ask yourself if you’d really like to see a Second Civil War. Because then you’d have to step up and defend “this.”

And you might not be able to.

Your children- dead. Your house- burned down. Your family- scattered, bitterly and implacably divided.

You do not want this.