War weary

I remember when I stumbled upon my grandfather's war photo collection.

I remember him waking up screaming.

I remember him pacing the floors of their old house because he couldn't sleep.

I remember sitting on the sofa in the common area on the first floor of Darrow Hall at BGSU and watching Operation Desert Storm begin on the television.

I remember sitting in the court administrator's office on 9/11 watching the second tower fall on a tiny black and white television.

I remember the meeting to determine to close the Home and Garden show in our county in the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic in Ohio.

I remember working from home while my children's school was closed for months.

I remember answering impossible questions like, "Do we allow the COVID positive patient back in the nursing home? If not, where does he go?"

But all of these things are not equal in my mind.

Framing the coronavirus pandemic using war terms makes me very uneasy.

• Platooning
• Frontline
• Invaded
• Fight/Battle/War
• Hero/Enemy

These words simply aren't appropriate for what we're facing. Not every scary challenge requires militarization. It serves no purpose but to create conflict where there is none.

I was in the room that first week...

• Were we overreacting?
• Were we underreacting?
• How does this virus spread?
• How lethal is it?
• What should we do?

I can tell you that there was no use of force that would fix it. No military...no political party...no God...had the answers. It was just a group of average people who wanted to do something to help the people in our communities.

It still is.

I wonder what my grandpa would think.

I am damn sure he wouldn't make a stupid war analogy.