If I Could Not Smile, I Think

Sometimes We Don't Notice That Someone Is Being Brave, Because They Are Only Doing Something That Seems Quite Easy For Us.

When I Reached Fort Binjemma, For Example, Where My Grandfather Was Stationed For A While, The Whole Victorian Fort Was Decaying. Barbed Wire Surrounded It, Spray Paint On The Ancient Walls Claimed It As Private Property, And The Moat Where My Grandfather And His Men Had Grown Crops - In Desperation As The Siege's Hunger Bit - Was Completely Overgrown With Bushes And Trees.

I Do Think It Is Harder To Acknowledge Our Strengths, Or To Forgive Ourselves And Each Other For Our Shortcomings, When There Has Not Been A Result We Can All Agree On. And It Is Certainly Impossible To Imagine Forgiving The Enemy While Their Animus Remains Undefeated. Yet War Doesn't End With Armistice, It Only Ends With Forgiveness And Reconciliation.

You Travel Here And You Travel There, Trying To Get Out From Under The Cloud, And Nothing Works, And Then One Day You Realize You've Been Carrying The Weather Around With You.

I Think All Of Us Are Intrigued To Imagine What We As Individuals Would Become, If We Were Ever Tested As Hard As That Golden Generation Was.