Rockridge High School
Taylor Ridge, IL

Mrs. Downey
War and Peace
Tyson Martin
12th Grade

War and peace has been a very familiar topic these past several months. Ever since September 11, 2001 everyone has been talking about war, terrorism, and peace. Those terrorists not only attacked those inside in the World Trade Center building but also our way of life. They took away our pride but we are coming back strong.

The government has been working hard to prove to the world that it takes more than one or two attacks to hurt us or make us believe that we are not capable to launch a counterattack. In fact, we are in the process of tracking down those who are responsible for the September 11th attacks. Throughout history many great people have discussed war; it has been always been a fact of life and will continue to be.

Ben Herbster said, "The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become." Dr. Herbster is the founding president of the United Church of Christ and a respected trustee for United Church Homes. His commitment to service to the elderly, his many hours of volunteer and professional leadership, plus his charitable support have enabled U.C.H. to expand and develop new programs and communities. He is also a very well respected resident of Trinity Community.

The world is capable of so much more than what we are giving. Although we are better than what we were fifty, even twenty-five years ago, we can still go farther and do more. Dr. Herbster is right. It is a great waste that we are not the great world that we should be. There is still violence, jealousy, greed, and deceit just to name a few things wrong with the world today. We need to correct these problems and move on to be completely happy with what we have.

I believe that we are capable of ending such evils but only if everyone tries. It is not enough for just a handful of people or even a handful of countries to try this. It would require the help of every nation; every country would have to somehow be involved. It would be a global effort but I think that it is possible.

Almost everyone knows or has heard of Billy Graham, but most people know him only as the American television evangelist. Graham was born in 1918 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and attended three different colleges. He turned to large-scale evangelism in 1949 when he then embarked on a series of tours of the United States and Europe. He is a charismatic preacher who has attracted millions to his meetings.

Billy Graham once said, "We must have military power to keep madmen from taking over the world." I believe that this statement is partially false. We have always had military power, but it almost did not help when Adolf Hitler tried to take over. Hitler was very successful in killing millions of Jewish people. Even with our military and the help of other countries, we had a difficult time trying to end Hitler's reign. It was a close battle that fortunately we won. This proves that even with military power it is possible for madmen to try and even succeed taking over the world.

Little is known about the columnist Mike Palecek who wrote Soul Searching. He did, however, work for a weekly newspaper in the Sandhills of Nebraska ten years ago. Palecek wrote on September 15th: "People should not be killing people. There is no good war. A more grown-up response would be to…correct the injustice in the world, the poverty, the lack of health, housing, food."

I agree with Palecek. It is written in the Ten Commandments, 'Thou shall not kill' but we do. Killing is killing whether or not we are at war. There is no point to retaliate and kill others just because those individuals killed Americans. Nothing will be resolved by shooting people. Those extremists did not agree with the American way of life, so they used our own planes as their weapons to attack us. They definitely caught us off guard, and we now have troops combing Afghanistan and surrounding countries searching for Osama bin Laden and his extremist followers.

President Bush wants bin Laden dead or alive, although there is no hard evidence that proves he was in charge of the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings. Say Osama is found and brought back to the United States, then what? He will be given an unfair, very biased trial and either sentenced to life in prison or given the death penalty. A
better solution to the attacks would be to do exactly what Palecek stated. We should not be at war with Afghanistan; we should be fighting the war against poverty, starvation, and the lack of healthcare and housing for the poor and elderly.

The war on these evils has been going on for many years, but the government does not give the organizations that are helping to fight them enough money and support to end the war. Even less money is now being spent on them because we are pouring it into fighting overseas, fighting 'real' enemies.

Well if you ask me, starvation, poverty, and the lack of healthcare and housing is also an enemy of the country. Just because they are not physical enemies, we do not care about them as much. Many Americans think that if we just ignore the problems or forget about them, they will just go away but that is definitely not true.

Finally is the quote from the ever-famous Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time. He is best known for his theory of relativity which he advanced when he was only twenty-six years old. Einstein was born in Ulm, Wurttemberg, Germany on March 14, 1879. At a young age he knew that there was something hidden behind everything. At the Swiss Polytechnic Institute he studied mathematics and physics. Then in 1933 he moved to the United States and became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He was a firm believer that peace among nations could be maintained in the atomic age only by bringing everyone together under a system of world law.
Albert Einstein once said, "I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with - stone clubs." I absolutely agree with him about that, especially since we pretty much know what will be used in the third world war: atomic weapons and biological warfare. With atomic weapons, if a major war were to break out, practically everything would be destroyed. Half of the world could be gone with one nuclear blast if it were big enough. It is a scary thought but definitely a true one.

If anyone survived the nuclear or atomic explosions or implosions, stone clubs and other seemingly harmless weapons (compared to bombs) would be the only thing left to use. Technology would completely disappear and we would once again be in the dark ages.

War is a part of life; it has been ever since the beginning of time. Only eight percent of the time has the entire world been at complete peace. We are so used to war that it does not bother most of us anymore. It is just a common day occurrence, which is the sad truth. This world has become the most desensitized world ever known. Nothing bothers us anymore. War only matters to us once we realize that it could be the last war ever to be fought. We will always experience war in our lifetimes, but I just hope that we do not take what those soldiers do for granted.

Bibliography

"Albert Einstein." On-line. Internet. 6 Jan 2002. Available WWW:
http://aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbol.wbPage/na/ar/co/175340
"Billy Graham." On-line. Internet. 6 Jan 2002. Available WWW:
http://encarta.msn.com/index/consiseindex.28/0281800.htm
"David's United Church of Christ Dialogue." On-line. Internet. 6 Jan 2002. Available
WWW: http://www.davidsunitedchurch.org.octoberdialogue.pdf

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