The Seven Days Battle

     In every aspect of war it is expected that lives will be lost. It is emotional, it is terrible, but it is inevitable. However, there is no clause in war that says the lives of our soldiers cannot be preserved. The people in charge are set away from the front line for a reason. If their emotions conflicted with their decisions, things could get complicated. Due to this war is then turned into a game of numbers and tactics, and a soldier’s life reduced to a number, his name one among thousands on a list. The ultimate goal is to win the war, to take what we want and to give them nothing. The problem with this is that soldiers are giving, and bleeding, and dying.  It is the commanders, the generals, the captains who are responsible for the lives of the soldiers; it takes good ones to be able to take into account how many lives could be lost and actually use that in their decision making.

One of the bloodiest battles that could have been avoided were it not for the orders of the generals was the Seven Days War. It was here that so many soldiers fell for naught but following orders; they are remembered throughout history by a sad song played at sunset all over the nation every night. This is where “Taps” carried the first souls of fallen soldiers to eternal rest, and at every funeral of every soldier from that day on, it is played as they are laid in their graves.