The Somme Still Flows by Edmund Blunden - A Reflection

War. What is war? When two or more countries face off each other in the battlefield with weapons, indulge in bloodshed and at some point in time announce permanent cease-fire? Then arises a critical question - who won? Can this question ever be answered? Yes, those blinded by the lust for power will claim they have emerged victorious. A case in point, the U.S. success in Afghanistan and Iraq. Success. Victory. What are they? How do you measure success? Edmund Blunden shows us the real face of war in his essay. He writes as the one who has seen the reality of war. Blunden opines in his essay that neither of the two sides is a winner in a war. There is one winner, and that is War itself. It is easy to start a war, but hardly ever an end to a war can be seen or is achieved. The battle of the Somme started on July 1st, 1916. The British had surprises for the French in the form of jumping-off positions, field guns to be fired from the front trenches. But so had the French. Battalions disappeared. It is hard to imagine the presence of hope in a field where bodies are falling to the right and left of you.  But it was there. Hope to remain alive at the end of a day, and hoping to survive the next day - it was an eternal circle of hope. "The heart of the monster lay South", and so Blunden and his fellow troops entered it. This is when the nightmarish quality of War showed its head. This is where the significance of this essay comes in. The writer successfully breaks the false aura of glory woven around war, and paints its true ugly colours.  The colourful Summer painted the writer and his mates' world grey by bringing death and hopelessness. The smell of gunpowder replaced the fragrance of flowers, the chirping birds took the form of roaring guns. The youthful troops who had entered the battlefield bursting with enthusiasm, returned in odd numbers with the image of death ingrained in their minds forever. As the winter took its roots, the writer and his fellow troops left the battlefield - the season a fitting compliment to the young men who were merely ghosts of themselves. The writer then tries to explain what war really is. He says there are no cornfields, no glory. Only the silent grave waiting to swallow you in a sombre cemetery. War is a Monster which swallows one up. Even if it spews out few, they are permanently covered by its slime. It takes nothing away from those who died fighting for their country though - the only people who can upstage them are those who prick out the thorn called war.

What touches the reader in this essay are the words used by the writer, each dripping with feeling and stamped by suffering. The readers can actually see the life being sucked out of a brimming young man, leaving him as a ghost of his former self. The world hasn't become war-free. Cities are still being wiped out, youth is still being drawn into the falsehood of war. Only it has become deadlier. The nuclear war has wiped out the concept of bodies, graves and cemeteries. The writer expresses hope in the title of the story. "The Somme Still Flows." Is there hope in today's world? Is there going to be a favourable result of the Palestine struggle? Can anyone see a prosperous Afghanistan? Can anyone see a progressive Iraq? Is peace ever going to reign in Pakistan? Edmund Blunden concludes with the philosophical thought that life goes on and nature continues to bloom. Yes, life goes on; hope springs eternal;  but solution to today's problems.....??