War Vacation

War Vacation

A section of June in my cute cat calender on the kitchen wall has been torn out for a collage. (When art calls, it calls whether the month is finished or not!) This is how I found July waving at me as it peeks through from under half June. My eyes are drawn to "WWI begins." I do a double take. What? WWI began in July? The July of fireworks and picnics for a proud Independence day. Of sun and sea or maybe a lakeside. Of catapulting into the water of Grafton Park or maybe exploring the escarpment of the Indian Ladder Trail at Thatcher Park. 

The July of my childhood meant no school and summer vacation. But there was a moment in history–maybe more than one for all I know–in which they actually started a war in summer. No frolicking in the fields in the Alps, no making mud pies after a rain. It was time to make war. 

How did WWI really begin, anyway? I am not a history buff, but I know the tip of the iceberg was the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand...was it more of an excuse to make war? The situation was so tense before the war that many called Europe a powder keg waiting to explode. Countries piled onto the brawl over different disputes, one even changing sides to add to the mass chaos and confusion.

Craziness! War is just plain madness at any time, but the fact that WWI began in summer smacked me in the face. Winter seems so much more like a fitting war month with it's gloomy gray, don't you think? That somehow the soldier of steel could come out of a cold, winter mist...Who pictures a soldier in a trench with golden summer rays? How can the sweetness of summer (at least my memory of it) be conducive to war?

From what I remember, many soldiers were basically still kids–skinny teenagers wanting to show their stuff or save their countries with bursting patriotism. They were barely out of high school if they had finished at all. Just kids playing soldiers on a summer vacation.

It's mind boggling.

Photo:  <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/nonmisvegliate-7011191/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=3557298">Luca</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=3557298">Pixabay</a>

Text: Kristen Mastromarchi