i recently spent a week in germany. what a beautiful country. i wish i could say that i was there for pleasure, but it was mostly work. i spent the entire week in the city of stuttgart, in the southwest region of germany. it’s a very old city with a complex, hilly street system. if i ignored the architecture and the consistent snowfall, it felt as if i was traveling around san francisco. because the city is known in germany to be very confusing to navigate, a kind man named norbert transported me around. norbert was in his early thirties, a few years older than me. we actually looked and dressed rather similarly. we each had our north face coats, jeans, and comfortable shoes. thankfully, norbert’s english was far better than my german, or our travels would have been very quiet.
norbert is an anesthesiologist in a city a few hours away from stuttgart. he’s married with two young children. he was volunteering to drive me around for the conference i was there to help produce. he told me about his life, his work, and the town he lives in. he also told me about the history of stuttgart, and that most of the city had been destroyed in the war. as he was describing the rebuilding process, it hit me. sixty years ago norbert and i would not have been learning about each other. we wouldn’t have talked about our wives, the music we like, or how tired we are of snow at this point in the year. we would have been trying to kill each other. we would have been enemies in a war spanning the globe. this thought was very unsettling to me. mostly because i was enjoying my daily rides with norbert and learning about his life. how could i fathom taking a life as valuable as his?
the more i thought about it, i realized that if it were sixty years previous, and norbert and i were on opposite sides, we wouldn’t really be fighting each other. at least not for the sake of killing. i wouldn’t be fighting so that his family would never see him again. we would be fighting over the conflicting ideals of our countries, or at least of the current leaders of our countries. i would be fighting to stop the horrendous acts of an evil dictator named adolf hitler. and like most germans at the time, norbert would be fighting out of fear for that dictator rather than belief in the same values.
i would be engaged in a battle between myself and death. and in war, the avoidance of death necessitates killing. it’s rather crass, and i don’t mean to be overtly simplistic. and, i’m also sure that there are people who would simply enjoy the killing part. but if it were me, the fear of death would be my only motivation. another person’s life is less important to me than living to get home to be with my family and friends. even as i’m writing this it sounds so selfish. but it’s honest.
maybe someday i’ll be riding through the streets of mosul listening to the life story of a kind iraqi gentlemen who doesn’t seem that different from me. maybe we’ll talk about our families and how silly it seems that once we were enemies. i wonder who we’ll be at war with then?
Got a cigarette???
Posted by: skiles | March 21, 2005 at 08:33 PM