Iran/Iraq: A War Remembered

This morning I was thinking about the Tehran Peace Museum and remembering the words of a few former soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war. They had been wounded and disabled in the fighting. They were angry that Saddam had been executed before he could be tried for his use of chemical weapons against Iran in the war. For these soldiers, and for many other people we met, that war was still quite fresh in their minds. They weren't looking forward to more horror, not from any quarter.

Previously, I'd heard about the war from former Iraqi soldiers. They talked of being sent to the front, when they knew it was more likely they'd return home dead than alive. I remember one of our translators in Iraq recalling graffiti in a trench on the front lines: "Children kill frogs for fun, but the frogs die seriously."

Perhaps there is some hope for healing: in Iraq, I never heard people talk about that war as something to be proud of, either for starting it or for how it ended. To the people I heard from, it was only a tragedy.

Much like now, I imagine--there is no other word besides 'tragedy' to describe it.

I hope for no more war for Iran. I hope for no more war for Iraq, or Afghanistan, or anyone. I hope.