Kiona-Benton High School
Benton City, Washington
By: Rachyl Burnham-Roach
12th Grade
War and peace, what does that mean? To me the meaning is the difference between dying and surviving. Our country is known for its peace efforts all over the world, and it is why we are the biggest world power. Peace is an essential part of everyone’s lives and we need to keep it however and whenever we can. In today’s society the world needs smart leaders that make smart decisions, or the world will be one big war site. Without these smart leaders that make the smart decisions we could not keep peace and hold it. The current leaders, by their decisions have shown that no one wants war and they try not to think about war. In war, when leaders find out that they can lose their men in one single battle, surely they will turn to peace. All in all they will find out that war never solves anything.
An unknown author once said, “To preserve peace, we need weapons of smaller and men of larger caliber.” In an instant I knew that this was something that I agree with. Many times in the past, our country has fought wars and won them because of smart decisions made by people in high places. These men stood up for their country and they put themselves on the line for their country’s future. My interpretation of this quote is that the people have to be bigger than the weapons and the war and find peace through diplomatic relations. If our people can’t do that or won’t do that then our country and the rest of the world is going to have a hard time surviving.
Leaders of the world and people in high places throughout this world have come to realize that war is stupid, and they are smart enough to get themselves out of it. Take the Vietnam War for example, the US leaders finally realized that war will not settle the dispute and that they needed to get out of the war.
“People are becoming too intelligent ever to have another big war. Statesmen have not anything like the prestige they had years ago and what is educating the ordinary people against war is that they are mixing too much. The motor-car, radio and suck things are the great ‘mixers’…I believe the last war was too much an educator for there, ever to be another on such a large scale.” Henry Ford said this in 1928 in The American Scrapbook, and he spoke the truth. The term mutual assured destruction can interpret this quote. Every country is so scared of the others that they can’t launch another high scale war because they know that they could start something that could be lethal.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel made this comment at one point in history, “ My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.” Can anyone be ever so true? We have fought wars and lost many men and found that if we find peace the world is better off. Right now and going back way into the future there has been conflict between the Palestinians and the Jews for the sacred lands of Israel. They keep fighting for this land and killing many people and they still cannot seem to make an agreement. If both of these types of people can learn to live together and make peace and harmony then they would not lose anymore of their men. There will come a time in the future where there will be a big war and one or both of these types of people will lose many men and then will they realize that this can all be settled by peace.
War or peace, which to choose? Which will decide our future? It is up to everyone in this world whether they want death or survival. All we need is good men with good mind power and which make good decisions. The leaders of today are too smart to start a large-scale war because they know that if they do something bad will come of it. If they just realize this now before they have to sacrifice lives of many men and women then the world will be in good shape but if not God help us all.