Wars end, killing goes on.
In the final episode of the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers“, World War II had ended and the men of the 101st airborne were trying to figure out how to pass the time. Sadly, the official peace declarations did not put an end to the death in the 101st. People were still being reckless and held grudges resulting in the deaths of a few people.
As I was reading Philip Gourevitch’s “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families” this evening, I couldn’t help but realize that a similar type thing happened after the genocide in Rwanda. About a year after the genocide, there was a large refugee camp in a town in southern Rwanda called Kibeho that held a couple hundred thousand misplaced persons. In one night, 2000 to 3000 people were killed in this camp. Mind you, this was after the genocide had ended. This was a camp that was supposed to be peaceful and safe for refugees.
Both Band of Brothers and the killings in Kibeho got me thinking about the ends of wars. Has there ever been a war that has ended “cleanly”? For the United States, once we pull out of a country there is no more killing of our soldiers but the people in the occupied contries still kill each other. If there is never a clean ending, shouldn’t we think of the signing of treaties more as the beginning of the end than the clear cut ending?
I guess history needs a set date for posterity’s sake but I think the end of the war should be marked in the history books as the date of the last official death of a soldier that is deployed during the war. This would be more respectful and honorable to those who gave their lives to serve their cause, even after the goal has been “accomplished”.
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