I’ve been writing for 75 years starting at about age 10 and continuing for 75 more years and then some. What wound me up was a class trip to Gettysburg. I was born in 1940 and until 1956 some civil war vets were still around.
Albert Henry Woolson (1850–1956) is recognized as the last undisputed surviving veteran of the American Civil War, passing away on August 2, 1956, at age 106. As a drummer boy for the Union Army’s Company C, 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery, he was the final survivor of over two million soldiers who served.
Back then, I began studying other wars going back into ancient history and moving on through the bloody ages by bloody ages. As a kid I was appalled at the stupidity of humanity and I’ve never gotten over it. Humanity should have understood immediately (after the very first one) how incredibly stupid wars are and decided right then to never ever engage is such monstrous bloody dumbness.
By the time I finished HS, I had studied every one of mans insane wars and found not one was of any meaningful benefit to humanity. All were engaged in by idiots on both sides bent on murdering as many humans as possible. In every case, crazed zealots seemed to the behind every single war humans ever engaged in.
Our Civil War was entirely avoidable and should never have been fought. That it was and that it cost us some 690,000 deaths and twice then number wounded is a testament to our stupidity. By 1861 all, even the poorly educated, in America knew very well that many wars had been engaged in throughout the ages and that nothing but tragedy and grief was the end result. How the hell can humans be so damned stupid! (that’s not a question)
In my 43 published books there’s a characteristically discernable constant (the inexplicable repetitive inclination to insanely exterminate ourselves). Throughout human history men have
(over and over again) engaged in massive efforts to kill each other. Each time, the weapons improved and success, in terms of the numbers murdered, increased significantly.
The earliest recorded war in human history is generally cited as the conflict between the Sumerian city-state of Lagash (or Kish) and the region of Elam around (2700)–(2600) BCE. This war is documented in early Sumerian texts, though prehistoric evidence of organized violence, such as the Jebel Sahaba massacre which dates back significantly earlier. A 2016 study found evidence of a massacre at Nataruk, Kenya, where 10,000 year-old skeletons (including women and children) were found with hands bound and skulls crushed. In a prehistoric cave in the Iberian Mediterranean Basin, dating roughly (8,000\)–(3500\) BCE, drawings depict scenes of archers in combat which indicate tribal warfare.
From then on, almost every single year, in one miserable place after another, men have engaged in the wholesale slaughter of others. In not a single case did humanity learn anything from these rivers of spilled blood! We just kept at it year upon year through the great world wars in the 1940’s until today. (until today!!!!)
After incredible investment in time, money and scientific advancement we did it, we managed to split the atom. Perhaps arguably man’s greatest achievement! And then, what did we do with it?
Of course, WE BUILT A GREAT BLOODY BOMB!!! Which we quickly then used to blow up two big cities full of people! A marvelous success! Now, one would think we (humanity) might be done, maybe we learned something after all? Very quickly, everyone got the bomb and everyone has them on great rockets. Today, we stare at each other with fear and trembling wondering if and when some crazed son of a bitch will decide to end humanity permanently!
Never in history has any species tried more diligently to exterminate (extinguish) itself than has mankind! This ugly fact lies at the core of my writing. I pray that somehow someday, somewhere, someone will heed my warning and wake the rest of us the fuck up! War and fighting, must stop. The killing must stop! No more!!!
