With war cascading again across the globe in places like Ukraine and Israel, it made me think of the ancient quotation of Jesus that there shall be “wars and rumors of wars.” It is mentioned in three of the four gospels in the New Testament.

Though the quote, over the years, has engendered much speculation about the “end times,” it seems to me that it also describes quite accurately the present time. Unfortunately, the story of human history is also a story of war.

As the movie “Star Wars” describes it, “there is a dark side to the force.” The Bible is clear that there is a sinful side to humankind. However you describe it, its ugly head reveals itself in war. When civil life and legal norms break down–war comes and war is bad.

At its core, war means failure. Negotiation, dialogue, peaceful resolution of disputes, the application of the rule of law–it has all failed and now we turn to killing each other to resolve things.

I am a veteran of the Vietnam War. Perhaps it was the most divisive war in American history. I volunteered to go to Vietnam…I was not drafted. It was not that I thought Vietnam would have a good ending–I saw it as my generation’s war and something that I shouldn’t try to duck.

My Vietnam experience also reinforced in my thinking the truth that when civilized society descends into war, it should be fought between combatants. The rules of engagement for us were clear–we were fighting other soldiers, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Civilians were to be protected.

Along the Cambodian border the fighting was particularly intense. All of our fighting took place at night, so a night curfew was put in place–civilians stayed in their homes, the fighting was between combatants. Our out-going machine gun tracers were red. Their in-coming were green. It could seem like a scene from Christmas. Both sides knew who was doing the shooting–and we weren’t civilians.

What has concerned me most about the current war-making in Ukraine and Israel is the seemingly indiscriminate taking of civilian life. This is war at its worst.

When, later in life, I became Executive Director at the Robert H. Jackson Center, I was reintroduced to all of these issues again since Jackson had been the Chief American Prosecutor at the trial of the major Nazi defendants at Nuremburg at the end of World War II. He established then what are still today the ethical standards in judging war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Though we will continue to have wars and rumors of wars, a Jackson quote on the flagpole base at the Center articulates what an achievable goal should be: “If we can root out of men’s thinking that all wars are legal–at last, we will have mobilized the forces of law on the side of peace.”

Jackson never saw World War II as a “war to end all wars.” He expected that war and the crimes related to it would continue. Man’s inhumanity toward man is not something that will ever go away. But, as he also rightly observed–if civilization is to survive, we must find ways to align the forces of law on the side of peace.

Rolland Kidder, Stow, NY