Wind Doth Blow
Entry by: JB
28th February 2022
Wind... doth ... blow
Incredulously, it is the year of 2022 and, once more, there is war in Europe. I sit alone looking at my history books on the shelf and feel the cold, icy gloom creep through my body and into my soul. Family photographs nestle next to great works by authors such as Max Hastings and Anthony Beevor. My grandfather, seriously wounded in the muddy trenches of the Somme, died without me ever seeing him. My father, veteran of the Pacific campaign against the Japanese, lost his brother to the Nazis in the waters of the Mediterranean. Sacrifice such as this bought us decades of peace and allowed such fortunate souls such as me the chance to pursue a happy and relatively luxurious existence. And now, no more than a few hours' flight away, innocent people are losing everything ... their homes, their possessions, their friends, family and their identity. For what? For the aspirations of a power crazed maniac bent on reconciling the humiliation he felt with the fall of the Berlin Wall and its aftermath. History repeats itself.
Clearly, the wind doth blow. It blows from the scheming interior of the Kremlin into the heart of Ukraine, gripping a democratic country in a vice of subjugation. This evil wind, summoned by the command of one dictator, blows away the freedoms of a nation and threatens many more.
And what can I do? Money sent to the Red Cross and my blue and yellow flag on the gate to my property are miniscule morsels of efforts I've made to show support for those people suffering the disaster that is unfolding a thousand miles away to the east. Today, here at home the weather is cold and grey and I'm snug before a warm fire surrounded by my worldly possessions, a kitchen full of food and everything else I need. The TV tells me that Putin has put nuclear status on high alert. I reach to my library and read Raymond Briggs' book, "When the wind blows." and start to cry. Mired in a hollow of depression I ask myself what can I do. I play some music from those heady, carefree days of my youth in the 1960s. How prescient of Bob Dylan to wail, "How many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned ... And how many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just doesn't see? ... The answer is blowin in the wind"
Incredulously, it is the year of 2022 and, once more, there is war in Europe. I sit alone looking at my history books on the shelf and feel the cold, icy gloom creep through my body and into my soul. Family photographs nestle next to great works by authors such as Max Hastings and Anthony Beevor. My grandfather, seriously wounded in the muddy trenches of the Somme, died without me ever seeing him. My father, veteran of the Pacific campaign against the Japanese, lost his brother to the Nazis in the waters of the Mediterranean. Sacrifice such as this bought us decades of peace and allowed such fortunate souls such as me the chance to pursue a happy and relatively luxurious existence. And now, no more than a few hours' flight away, innocent people are losing everything ... their homes, their possessions, their friends, family and their identity. For what? For the aspirations of a power crazed maniac bent on reconciling the humiliation he felt with the fall of the Berlin Wall and its aftermath. History repeats itself.
Clearly, the wind doth blow. It blows from the scheming interior of the Kremlin into the heart of Ukraine, gripping a democratic country in a vice of subjugation. This evil wind, summoned by the command of one dictator, blows away the freedoms of a nation and threatens many more.
And what can I do? Money sent to the Red Cross and my blue and yellow flag on the gate to my property are miniscule morsels of efforts I've made to show support for those people suffering the disaster that is unfolding a thousand miles away to the east. Today, here at home the weather is cold and grey and I'm snug before a warm fire surrounded by my worldly possessions, a kitchen full of food and everything else I need. The TV tells me that Putin has put nuclear status on high alert. I reach to my library and read Raymond Briggs' book, "When the wind blows." and start to cry. Mired in a hollow of depression I ask myself what can I do. I play some music from those heady, carefree days of my youth in the 1960s. How prescient of Bob Dylan to wail, "How many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned ... And how many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just doesn't see? ... The answer is blowin in the wind"
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