I had some spare time yesterday and decided to visit the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
Walking through the museum, it’s hard to come to grips with something as awful as war. Most from this generation only understand the experience from what we’ve read or seen in movies and documentaries. It’s easy to think of the adventures and glories of war, harder to imagine the incredibly sad and brutal nature of war.
War: a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.
The definition above makes it almost seem benign. It leaves out the horror, hopelessness and utter despair.
The museum is very tasteful and not at all about glorifying war. Overall a really good experience for visitors of all ages.
Near the end, we were walking through the LeBreton Gallery and we struck up a conversation with a World War II vet. He was explaining how one of the specialized tanks was used during the war. He was a volunteer, very knowledgable and full of interesting stories. He was obviously proud of the tanks and of the role he played over sixty years ago.
In the end, I learned this… War is Hell and we would do best to avoid it.
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