Wars have always been bloody, with arms and stuff that see soldiers and civilians alike succumbing to bullets and armaments in the struggle for power.
Such was the first and second world wars, a recknoning of strenght and infant technology bordering on the nerve gas like Agent Orange, biowarfare, air power, ground muscle and everything so minute like barbed wire, ammunition, snipers and so much more evident in the art of war.
But this one, in “World War III, ‘battle strategies are changing across the globe. Yes, that single droplet in our midst is armed and dangerous, with a stealth-like arsenal that one little drop could carpet bomb and destroy humanity in days. It’s not even like HG Wells” the War of the Worlds where aliens came to conquer earth with a weapon that Earthlings withstood by killing the nerve of its system with what--a virus? A bacteria?
Yet this one is different. It’s not even what experts predicted: a nuclear war in the final and third war that will see the world bursts like a bubble with the push of buttons, whereever you might think that to come from.
Our elders told of stories of the past wars when they had to contend with survival: rice mixed with corn, camote as a staple, digging the outback of what could be harvested from the ground. Yes, it was a colorful yet horrific scenario maybe you and I, and the millennials of now, would not want to hear or see anymore.
Yet, despite the furor or hatred of war, our predecessors survived to tell.
Can we now with Covid-19?
The pictures of a new war have changed with technology, with the net, FB and work from home as counterweapons to this enemy concealed in our saliva, firing upon sneeze and cough at a distance of one meter, not even the most modern armored tank could do.
It has brought the world to its knees, with people locked at home, supplies running out, roads closed and worst, families distancing themselves apart. I could fire upon you in a second. The virus has made me a spy. Apart from its direct and physical assault to the body, it psychological grenade includes fragmentations of doubt, fear, paranoia, stress and depression.
This World War III is the longest we will see, many agree. It’s going to be a long battle maybe not even the greatest tactician of all time could predict. Cure remains a struggle. The deserted streets at night only lack but one character: a zombie who has nowhere to go.
Still, we defy this little yet too strong enemy in our midst in our own ways. Yes, obedience and unity and following the law. But without a silver bullet to kill the wolf, we are scared and remain optimistic to divine providence even as the enemy within us has infiltrated the very system of our faith.
Rest assured, in every battle and war emerges as victor, as every battle scarred and tested soldier knows. It shoud be us. It must be us raising the flag of triumph at the end of it all.