I have a buddy in his early forties working full time for the county as a social worker. The guy has real street sense; amazing fellow really.

He decided to go back to school. He is on his second family now. Two kids in their twenties and now a five year old boy.

He is working on his masters and, I assume, a teaching certificate. And he does most of his work on line.

The latest class he signed up for is European History from the 19th century on.

So we discussed some of my views on the subject

As I have stated on my little site, there is one great miracle of the twentieth century that we do not read enough about these days.

Looking at the 19th century, America kind of invented modern warfare; it took the deaths of some 650,000 soldiers for this country to become a Federated Democratic Republic.

Bismark was reportedly fascinated by our Civil War as were other European leaders including the Tsar of Russia.

Europe took all this a step or two further.

In the twentieth century, within 31 years or so, Europe lost between 100 and 120 million people in wars.

Europe has been at war with itself for over three thousand years. Homer is writing about Ulysses and Achilles who wore their armor and carried their weapons of glory in the 12th century BC. When you stand back and look at it all with a fresh perspective it is easy to see the European continent continuously at war with itself for three thousand years.

And then something happened.

Maybe it was the destruction of most of its cities along with a hundred million people.

But for the last 65 years, Western Europe as been at peace with itself.

Germany has not invaded anything lately except for Mercedes Benz.

England and France have a road connecting one another under the ocean. And neither country appears to have any fear of soldiers traveling one way or another on that road.

Norwegians no longer hide and cringe in fear of some new threat of invasion.

France and Germany don't argue over Alsace-Lorraine anymore.

And the Italians do not even have to keep switching sides any more.

When I was there decades ago the only bad attitude I caught were some French youths who just had to make Belgian jokes.

Sweden and Ireland do not even have to feign neutrality anymore.

The Swiss, well they still let you hide your money there although they have succumbed to some pressure to open their books from time to time and they do so like to play with Middle Eastern capital and even capital for the terrorists.  They also enjoy protecting sex offenders but that is another subject.

America, through its magnificent technology is now the warrior nation.

We now know how to kill hundreds of thousands of people with the loss of a relatively few number of soldiers.  This is really a first. We even employ our own Hessians to do half of the work.

Don't get me wrong. I am certainly aware of ethnic cleansing in the old Yugoslavia.  I mean Tito was able to hold it all together; Muslims and Christians and Jews with an iron fist.  Then he died and left chaos.

And I understand that there are real problems going on behind the old Iron Curtain.

But for Christ's sakes and I really mean for Christ's sakes there could not have been one European who could have predicted this kind of peace between 1900 through 1945. I mean IT was never going to end.

And America should take a lot of pride in all of this. Not only did we end the European Wars with soldiers and supplies and plenty of ammo; our Marshall Plan helped rebuild half a continent.

We, on the other hand, never stop making war somewhere or other.

Clinton was a master at providing a real peace keeping force. I do not think we lost one soldier in the old Yugoslavia.

A perfect world? No.

There is and has been carnage and ethnic cleansing in the African Continent.

As if Afghanistan and Iraq are not enough, many Americans just can't wait to invade Iran.

Israel is at war with everybody these days and their democracy maintains a dictatorship of sorts over a good number of its own residents who do not wish to visit their Temples.

There are real issues of carnage in parts of SE Asia.

We have problems in Central America while many of our own citizens really would enjoy a land war with the Mexicans.  

Venezuela and Columbia appear to be having problems and of course U.S. is there. http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/76534/colombia-venezuela-chavez-farc-uribe-santos

We have more than twice the population that we had at the end of WWII. The earth's population has doubled.

All I am saying is:

THANK THE LORD FOR LARGE FAVORS.

As far as I am concerned, my generation has witnessed on of the greatest miracles in the history of mankind.

Europe has a union and is not at war with itself.

 Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The total number of casualties in World War I, both military and civilian, were about 37 million: 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 6.8 million civilians. The Entente Powers (also known as the Allies) lost about 5.7 million soldiers while the Central Powers lost about 4 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties

 

World War II casualty statistics vary greatly. Estimates of total dead range from 50 million to over 70 million.36 The sources cited on this page document an estimated death toll in World War II of 62 to 78 million, making it the deadliest war ever. When scholarly sources differ on the number of deaths in a country, a range of war losses is given, in order to inform readers that the death toll is disputed. Civilians killed totaled from 40 to 52 million, including 13 to 20 million from war-related disease and famine. Total military dead: from 22 to 25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWII_Casualties

Now these include deaths attributed to the Asian Theater. But body counts are not easy when you are looking at the carnage that took place in Europe from 1914 to 1945.

But I cannot help but feel the Europe might have shown us how miracles can occur.