Posted on 05/11/2025 4:36:12 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Years ago I was neck-deep in primary sources from the U.S. Civil War. Looking through battlefield correspondence and diaries, a sad detail kept jumping out. Again and again, soldiers described the last words of fallen friends who thought of their mothers. There were cries of anguish desperately seeking a mother’s care. There were moments of delirium in which the dying seemed to see their mothers amid the madness. There were sober messages of love expressed one last time before death. It struck me hard how the thoughts of so many sons — in the time of their greatest need — turned to their mothers.
That detail has stuck with me. And it certainly was not unique to the Civil War. I have come across a multitude of similar stories from the First and Second World Wars, the Vietnam War, and our most recent large-scale engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am sure that if the historical record were more complete, I would find endless accounts going all the way back to wars between ancient Greek city-states that described the dying words of warriors thinking about their mothers.
A poet might say this makes sense. Our mothers brought us into this world, and it is only natural that our thoughts would return to them as we depart. Still, these images pain me when I fixate on them for too long. The picture of wounded, lost, and often terrified young men longing for their mothers on strange and bloody fields is deeply haunting. The terrible things that we do to each other during times of war do not fade like smoke on contested terrain. They ripple across generations and break family lines for good.
There’s so much stupid talk these days about mothers and fathers being nothing but socially engineered constructs.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Happy Mothers Day.
Thank you. Being a mom has been one of my greatest privileges.
Because of the article, I’ll also note that my father was adopted. On his deathbed, sometime during his last day, he appeared to have a vision of his mother. We don’t know which one. We think it was his birth mother because he called her “Mama”, and not “Mother” which is how he referred to his adoptive mother. So that sort of fits in with this article.
My own mother was a saintly person. She set a pretty high bar.
Happy Mother’s Day to all our FReeper Moms.
They look like a series of botched clones.
FZ’s coat and shoes look like they came out too big, but I think he did have some big feet on him and that he was about 6 feet tall.
Very touching to read. Thanks.
Thanks for your story.
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