Many of us here at Collector Times, both staff and readers, enjoy games. This includes war games, both historical re-enactment and completely fictitious. War games may be played using boards and dice, cards, computers, miniatures, or even paint ball guns or laser systems. It’s fun to pit ourselves in a game of strategy against an opponent who seeks to defeat us, even as we seek to defeat them. The danger is when we forget that real war is not like the games. I’ve mentioned before that I work in a bomb factory, and this is true. I’m not joking about that. Some have taken that to mean that my inclination is towards warmongering. After all, using the weapons we produce is "good for business." On the contrary, my desire is that the systems we build will be sufficient to deter war by making those who would be our enemies think twice before attacking us. War is a dirty business, and unfortunately, sometimes it cannot be avoided. History has shown that appeasement is not always the answer to territorial disputes, and sometimes even emboldens the aggressor. Sometimes a nation would like to just live in peace, but suffers an attack that launches them into war. We are not always the masters of our own destinies. We are just as often the unwitting pawns of a situation that was set in motion long before we realize. It is then that we must choose to either fight for what we hold dear, or surrender it to the whims of an enemy. Don’t expect this editorial to tell you whether I think we should go to war in Iraq or not. That isn’t my point, and I’m afraid I don’t have sufficient information to make that decision. What I hope to convey, instead, is the seriousness BOTH WAYS of what we are contemplating. I started off this column by talking about war games, and I’m going to return to that here for a moment. In a game, very little is really "on the line" so to speak. If two players recreate the Battle of the Bulge, for instance, if doesn’t matter if the Allied player loses the battle in the game. It doesn’t change the outcome of history in the real world. People don’t suffer from battles in a game like they do from real life battles. Destinies are not changed in a moment from a game, though they are regularly on a real battlefield. If you’re playing a paint ball war, and you get "hit", all that happens is you’re out of the game for the rest of the round. At worst, you may have a bruise or welt where the paint ball hit, but no lasting damage. If the battle is not going well in a computer simulation, you can always just quit and restart, trying to do better using the lessons you learned last time. It’s easy to laugh it off if you lose in a game. It’s not so easy to laugh it off when you lose in a real life battlefield. It seems almost silly to mention, but in real wars, people die. The trouble is, I think we too often think of that in too abstract a way, and not so much in real people. In war, both sides lose people who are husbands, wives, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, neighbors, friends, and so on. A parent is no less grieved over losing a son or daughter just because they’re on "the other side". I do not envy the people who have to make the decision to send men and women off to war. Not only are they making a decision that will affect multitudes of lives on both sides of the conflict, they’re also going to be "second guessed" no matter what they do. In a historical "for instance", look at Europe just prior to World War II. In March of 1936, Hitler moved his forces into the Rhineland in defiance of treaty provisions made at the end of WWI. After much discussion among themselves and with their allies, Britain chose to attempt appeasement rather than confrontation over this move, hoping that Hitler would be satisfied with regaining control of the Rhineland, and war could be avoided. This decision was not without critics, though, who believed that appeasement would only postpone the inevitable war with Germany. On the other hand, if Britain had chosen to use military force to attempt to extract Germany from the Rhineland, there would have been those who would have accused the British Government of being eager for war. While it is easy to look back on what happened, knowing what was to come, and render judgement on their decisions, but at the time the British Government made what they felt was the "best decision." Likewise, the United States Government is faced with a "Damned if you do, damned if you don’t" situation with Iraq. If we press on into war, we will be second guessed as to whether we could have solved the situation diplomatically or using economic sanctions. If we do not press forward with war, and Iraq does, indeed, have active programs producing weapons of mass destruction which they then turn loose on the region, we will be damned for hesitating and allowing them to bring their plans to fruition. We don’t have the ability to foresee the future and render our decisions based on that. We only have the lessons of history, and the data of today to work on. My hope and prayer is that we as a Nation, and our Government with us, can remain objective and wise enough to make the proper decisions. That we will be willing to fight for what we believe and for the security of all people, but that we will not be eager to so fight, and that we will only do so when it is clear that we have little other choice. I also hope that we will ask our Government the important questions to be sure that we, as a Nation, are doing the right thing, but that even if we disagree, we will still stand behind and support our military men and women. After all, they are not making the decision whether to go or stay, but they are the ones who will pay the price when the decision is made. War isn’t a game for anyone when the battlefields are real, but for the military members and their families, the stakes are tragically high.

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