Believe In America.com

butterbean · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 2271

Many people use the phrase “edge of the abyss” to describe some pending horror they anticipate will occur unless immediate action is taken to step back from the edge. Most that use the phrase have no practical life experiences to relate to tragedy that waits at the edge. It must be similar to someone discussing pains of child birth without ever giving birth.

Reality is this edge is more than can be imagined by those who have led a life of relative safety in a fog of perceived invincibility or immortality with no real concept of death or man’s inhumanity to man. “I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say war is all hell: William Tecumseh Sherman.

People who have faced horrors of war know what it means to live on edge of the abyss and fall into bowls of hell and torment unknown by civilized society. They know what it feels like to hear bullets passing by their heads sounding like bees but at a much faster speed. They have known what it means to confront pending inevitable death without reprieve or escape no matter how hard you try.

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http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=20432