It ain't like it used to be...

I heard a fascinating story on the radio yesterday.
An Australian World War II pilot, we'll call him Jack for the purposes of the story, was shot down over Germany during the war.
He told about how he ejected from the plane and parachuted smack bang into enemy territory, where he was a POW for the last 2-3 years of the war.
Anyway, fat forward 60 years and the guy has actually found the radar man/navigator of the plane that shot him down!
Not only that, they've become friends and Jack is planning on travelling to Austria sometime this year or next year to have a catch-up!

Which got me thinking, my how some things change...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not glorifying war, but war these days is just not the same as a good old-fashioned World War.
In those days war was "fair" - you had frontlines and trenches and people fought, conquered, then moved forward.
I'll never forget watching a doco about Gallipoli in high school which really highlighted to me the absurdity of war.
There was a ceasefire during the fighting for 24 hours at one point, and both Turks and Allied Forces put their guns down so they could pick up the bodies of their fallen comrades.
Both sides swapped cigarettes, chatted, joked and laughed with each other before separating again getting back to business.

Gone are those days.
Gone are the days of trench fighting.
Gone are the days of chatting to your former enemies post-war and reminiscing about better times.

Today, we have a worldwide war that George Bush has waged on an abstract noun.
Good luck getting 'terrorism' to wave the white flag, George.