O,
yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars!
-Lady Percy
King Henry The Fourth Part II Act II, scene iii, line 9
How many zillions of times do you suppose those words, or
variations of them, have been spoken over the millennia? I guess that’s the
first thought that crossed my mind, but rather, let’s take a look at what’s
going on here.
Ironically enough, Lady Percy is speaking to Henry Percy,
Earl of Northumberland. Sound familiar? It should. Just scoot back a few days
to Tuesday’s post. Yup, that’s right; this is the guy who called in sick to that battle. So today’s action is taking place at a later date, and just so you
know, Northumberland’s son Hotspur got killed in that battle where Pop pulled a
no-show. Well right now he’s planning on heading off to fight a new battle and
his wife and daughter-in-law (Hotspur’s widow) are trying to talk him out of
it. Spoiler alert: they succeed. I don’t know about
you, but it seems to me that this Northumberland guy really just doesn’t want
to do any fighting. Who can blame him? I don’t want to go to war either.
Here is a father and four sons. This father went to war before
any of the other guys in this picture were born. None of the sons went to war, and it’s
my thought, though I never asked him, that he was glad that none of us did. I’ve always believed that he, and most of those Greatest
Generation guys, felt that they had done the fighting so that we wouldn’t have
to. Thanks Dad.
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