What could be more difficult than WAR?

1914 Christmas Truce

1914. Europe was at war… again.
Thousands of years of conflicts between nations in Old Europe.
Wars that can be read in History Books,

were fought by real men, of flesh and blood. Thousands had die during those conflicts but never so many at the same time as in World War 1.
Trenches were built to be able to fight a dirty, muddy war, between brothers that just happened to be in two different sides.
Thousands were dying not because of the bullets, but the sickness provoked by the extremely difficult conditions.
The truce began on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium. They began by placing candles on trees. A strange sound came out them from the German side: Christmas carols. The lyrics of Stille Nacht (Silent Night, in German) floated over the trenches. The British troops in the trenches across from them responded by singing traditional English carols too.

A few heads showed over the trenches, shouting Christmas greetings to each other.
A German soldier walked towards the Brits with a small tree with some lifted candles on it. Soon thereafter, there were calls for visits across the “No Man’s Land” where gifts such as jam, cigars, brandy, whiskey, chocolates,… were exchanged.
Not only gifts, also addresses, pictures, stories told over clicking glasses went from hand to hand, from mouths to ears. The artillery in the region fell silent that night, the pistols stayed on the holsters and the bullet didn’t fly over. The only sounds that night: laughter, some manly cries and hearts beating in sync.
Fallen comrades could be brought back behind their lines to be buried. Proper burials took place as soldiers from both sides mourned the dead together and paid their respects. What a sight that must have been.

The truce spread to other areas of the lines, and there are many stories of football matches between the opposing forces. Stories being told said that the Germans won the football game that night,…

In many sectors, the truce lasted only through Christmas night. In some other areas, it continued until New Year’s Day.

The truce occurred in spite of opposition at higher levels of the military. What a surprise. Autocrats, seating behind their well served tables, opposed their men being killed.
A little earlier that year, the Pope at the moment, Benedict XV had literally begged for an official truce between the warring governments, with a letter that said “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.” The Germans actually considered it possible. Meanwhile the British angrily protested this proposition and ignored any further peace proposal made by the Pope.

Some of the main British commanders vowed that no such truce would be allowed again.
In all of the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve just to make sure the war won’t stop because of such trivial festivities, and troops were also rotated through various sectors of the war scenarios to prevent them from becoming “too familiar” with the enemy.
Despite those measures, there were a few friendly encounters every year, until the war ended in 1918, between enemy soldiers, but on a smaller scale than in 1914.

Many of the descendants of the soldiers remember the stories most likely being told by their grandpas and perhaps they can use that inspiration in their own lives.
Perhaps we can use it too. Keep reading.

The Killer Wave

or how I didn’t loose a friend that day

What made those soldiers decide to start that truce?
We can speculate about it and try and come with some psychological, psychosocial, expert answers; but I believe we will be better understand it if we just try to think about our motives, our reasons for doing things in our own lives.
I remember long time ago when an old friend of mine and me went to get empty shellfish at the beach. We use to do little paintings of faces and places. We were able to find nice pieces right at the sand; however, the best ones were by some rocks, several hundreds of yards inside of the sea. We went, of course, to the rocks.
The sea was showing a big and ugly temper that morning. We were so concentrated, trying to get the most beautiful and feasible shellfish possible that we didn’t see the waves had increased their size in just a few minutes since we got there. In fact, one was coming our way, really fast, and it was, at least double our height.
Something made me look behind me, over my shoulder. It was just in time. My brain somehow coordinated my eyes, my hand, and my feet. I saw an old broken metallic structure, probably the kind fishers used to tie their fishing boats. I grab the structure, firmed my feet on the ground and stretched my other arm grabbing my friend by his waist, and I did all that in a fraction of a second.
The wave covered the whole rock and us, but my arm resisted the incredible violence of the water and I resisted. My friend and I forgot about the shellfish that morning and made way back home soaked wet%u2026 but alive.

Generosity… Past it on

If we look at the Webster Dictionary definition of Generosity, we would find something like this:
Main Entry: generosity
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural generosities
Date: 1566

1 a : the quality or fact of being generous b : a generous act
2 : abundance

Not too specific, I believe.
2009 is almost finished and, of course, 2010 is on it’s way.
When we sit down to review (maybe not in a formal meeting with ourselves and our conscience), what are the deeds we are proud of? What could have we done different?
I am sure that we haven’t done 100% of everything we suppose to do in a perfect and spotless matter. Who does it, anyways?
You might have created disappointment on a loved one, might hurt the person that loves you most, etc. wherever it is, with each coming year, we have a fresh opportunity to “start all over” and be the kind of Hero we are really meant to be.
We are starting this series of Blogs to serve as an inspiration to all of our fellow human beings,… not because we are perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but because we learned to learn from our mistakes, and since we have so many, believe me we had the opportunity to learn a lot in the process.
A few last words. Let’s be kind and understanding with each other. Let’s remember that it doesn’t matter how successful, pretty, rich, famous, etc. someone is; we will be remember mainly by the acts of kindness we have each day.

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