A lovely series on UK television was called “Rumpole of the Bailey” about an ageing London barrister. One of his sayings was, “Death. Hmm. A lot of it around.”

To die means to live no more. A person who was identified by a name, a family, a character, a nationality and many lovely values is no more. What was taken for granted, is not there suddenly. Death has taken the life away.

How do soldiers feel about death? I expect they love not only their friends and family, but also their society. A soldier when not on duty is hurt as much as the rest of us by a death. But the same soldier thinks nothing about killing thousands who also belong to a nation, a society, a family, a mother, children and wife. This soldier who gets so pained by a single death in his/her neighborhood, has only one object in the war – kill as many enemy soldiers as he can. Bring as much destruction as he/she can to the enemy.

Duty cannot be called brutality. But the result is the same. So many wars have been fought on the earth that we have lost the count. Still they continue. The killings continue. Nationalities define boundaries and boundaries define friendships or enmity. What a tragedy! Did God draw the borders of nations? They evolved themselves. If we view our earth from the space, we will find it a small dot. But as we walk on the planet, things change. Loyalties change, and man changes. The result is always death and more death.