{"id":270,"date":"2011-04-03T08:05:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T15:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=270"},"modified":"2022-05-24T14:42:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T21:42:57","slug":"why-men-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/why-men-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Men Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my historical novel, Sunflowers Undedr Fire<\/em>, I write about the time my grandfather decided to fight for the Tsar’s army in the Great War. My grandfather told my grandmother “I promised the Tsar”.\u00a0 Is that why my grandfather wanted to fight? Out of patriotic duty? <\/em>My grandmother replied, “What about me and the children? You promised me first.” My grandmother wasn’t buying his reason, despite the fact the Germans and Austrians were threatening to invade.\u00a0 She was wondering how she’d manage without him. How would she be able to protect her six children when the enemy came?<\/p>\n

Recently, a friend said his son went to Afghanistan to fight as it was an extreme sport.\u00a0 For his son, there was risk, danger, and a chance to test oneself.\u00a0 Back home in Canada, he may have played video games where the blood wasn’t real and his best friend didn’t get shot beside him.<\/p>\n

And lately, we’ve been bombarded with news of uprisings in the middle east. In Libya, the men are dealing with a madman. They want to escape the life-sucking rules of a dictatorship or an execution for speaking up. Fear is a motivating factor. Fear for one’s safety is as old as the caveman when it comes to defending oneself against the enemy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And yet, we also fight out of love. Love for country, love for our fellow man, and love for our families. To keep those we love safe from harm. Years back, I visited Gallipoli, where the Aussies and Kiwis fought the Turks in World War I. It was a horrendous battle, where far too many valiant men on both sides lost their lives due to suicidal military orders. On the beach there, I found a heart-shaped stone. It gave me hope somehow. It gave me hope that these men who fought in the past, and the ones who are fighting today are not dying or being maimed in vain. Somehow, we have to learn how to get along and deal with the bullies in the world, before they get out of hand.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my historical novel, Sunflowers Undedr Fire, I write about the time my grandfather decided to fight for the Tsar’s army in the Great War. My grandfather told my grandmother… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[88,4],"tags":[122,36,124,123],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-writing","tag-czars-army","tag-memoir","tag-why-men-fight","tag-world-war-i"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-4m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6221,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2023\/writing\/who-are-we-without-the-language-of-our-ancestors\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":0},"title":"Who Are We Without the Language of Our Ancestors?","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"22 \u0422\u0440\u0430\u0432\u043d\u044f, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, indeed, who are we without the language of our ancestors? 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We arrived during a special mass with a dozen clergy and a packed cathedral. I had never heard of this miracle icon, and discovered\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_E2485.jpg?fit=744%2C1032&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_E2485.jpg?fit=744%2C1032&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_E2485.jpg?fit=744%2C1032&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/IMG_E2485.jpg?fit=744%2C1032&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":301,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/inspiration\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":3},"title":"Inspiration","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"8 \u041a\u0432\u0456\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Without inspiration, there is no creativity. I have a folder with photos I've taken, ones\u00a0 I think might inspire me to paint.\u00a0 This one, I took awhile ago, reminds me of what I'm working on right now, writing my grandmother's memoir. This feather was dropped by a seagull in our\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/P11207323-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":244,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/uncategorized\/universal-themes\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":4},"title":"Universal Themes","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"31 \u0411\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0437\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In writing my grandmother's and mother's memoir, I am struck by the universal themes that are peppering my pages.\u00a0 Love, death and destruction. Woven through all of this is the need to belong, a universal theme.\u00a0 To belong to a community whether it's based in a church, mosque or synagogue.\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/220px-Kiwerce_cerkiew_i_klacz.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2012\/writing\/writing-family-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":5},"title":"Writing Family History","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"5 \u0416\u043e\u0432\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m back to working on my baba\u2019s \u00a0story, NO TIME FOR TEARS, which is essentially an immigrant\u2019s story. \u00a0It\u2019ll be published as a novel, as I\u2019ve had to do a lot of research to fill in the blanks. \u00a0Because she lived behind the Iron Curtain, in Eastern Europe, information has\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/P1090283-300x297.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5692,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/5692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}