UNIFORMS FROM A CHILD's VIEW

From childhood on, I hated men in uniforms, especially soldiers. It probably stems from the time I lived with my grandparents just after the second WW. My grandma had also told me that all men wearing a uniform are bad and/or stupid.

When I was maybe just 3 or 4, I saw the first soldiers in my life and these were the Americans who sat on huge tanks crossing this little town in the middle of the country side, leaving deep holes and traces in the main street. I still can hear the noise it made when the asphalt broke under the curb chains. Although they were waving friendly to the watching population and threw sweets for the children, I was very much afraid.

Each men wearing a uniform, was either bad behaving like the Russians who raped all women in their way and took toilets for machines to wash potatoes, that's what my grandpa had told me. The others were coming back from prison camps looked sick and swollen up like balloons and were all wrecks !

All my little friends had fathers where something was missing. A leg, an arm, an eye, and all that because they had worn a uniform. I grew up seeing them wearing prostheses, and sometimes when I stayed at a friend's house overnight, I saw a leg standing around or an arm laying somewhere and once even a glass eye which stared at me in the bathroom. Therefore with the logic of a child I was convinced that uniforms are equal to war and war to destruction, and if nobody would wear an uniform there would be no war either.



When wars were still a question of men fighting against men, the uniforms were colorful and especially red colors were a nice target. One could see the other from far ! Children, women and the old people weren't damaged the battle fields outside towns.

Over the years the uniforms became more and more ugly and lost all colors. They were made not to be seen. Battle fields disappeared, countries became the battle field with no concern for the population. There were no longer fights with swords, and the first guns which were used often only had one bullet. Today in their camouflage uniforms they have machine guns, shells, bombs and landmines. Whole cities were or are destroyed and millions of innocent people killed.

Actual wars which are going on are later a nice subject for Hollywood films like about Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, former Yugoslavia, etc. And now there are new films in view about Syria for example. At least the film industry has some profit with people wearing uniforms !

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