Old Men Start Wars, Young Men Die in Them

“Older men start wars, but younger men fight them.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” ~ Herbert Hoover

“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” ~ George S. McGovern

One hundred years ago today—on July 1, 1916—thousands of young men died after older men decided, again, to send them to war. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British army suffered 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 were deaths, the French had 1,590 casualties, and the Germans had over 10,000. It was the single greatest day for casualties in British military history. By the time the Battle of the Somme ended in November, the British had around 420,000 casualties, the French about 200,000, and the Germans about 500,000.them even though they enlisted in the U.S. war machine of their own free will.

So, how do you end the war once and for all? Easy. Young men simply need to stop joining the military. It is just as Einstein said:

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

The pioneers of a warless world are the youth who refuse military service.

“War has never been possible,” writes Robert Meagher in Killing from the Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War, “ unless men have been willing to kill each other and, while they’re at it, possibly to be killed.” And as I have said over and over again: you can’t have a war without soldiers. It is only by young men not enlisting or refusing to enlist that war can be ended once and for all.

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