Last night around 11 I went to bed in hopes of drifting off but in 20 minutes, I was back in the living room watching tv.

What I saw was "Regeneration," a movie about a mental hospital for British soldiers suffering from shell shock in WWI. The purpose of the institution is to make them fit for duty again. A terrifying and mindless cause. Cure the insane, so they will be sane enough to deal with the insanity of battle.

A sad, brooding, thoughtful tale that catches the absolute horror of war without histrionics.

Among the patients were two poets - Siegfried Sasson and Wilfred Owen. I heard the Sasson name, and it finally occurred to me that there was indeed such a person. But there was no spark with Owen. I looked in an old book of poetry and found info about Owen but not Sasson. Owen died at the age of 25, one week before the Armistice.

Some years ago, I worked with someone who had moved to Canada to escape the draft during the Vietnam War. He wrote a letter to the paper about his views of war and said that nations do not make war against each other but against their own citizenry.

PAX!