Do or die…

I knew someone who had been in Yugoslavia during the last war. A very very nasty war in that country, with a million killed.

He was fighting with the Partisans – the Communist forces under Tito.

He told me that once he was with a group of partisans in a cave as German soldiers were searching just outside. They had a German prisoner with them, held by the man I knew (I couldn’t call him a friend – he had no friends). No chances could be taken.. he said he strangled the prisoner with his bare hands to make sure the Germans didn’t hear anything.

That tale was related to me as a teenager, one of several attending the fledgling Peace Studies Department at my university. about a situation 24 years earlier. I was very angry about the Vietnam war and had attended peace demonstrations against Nixon’s conduct of that war. He was very contemptuous of my pacifism. I now see his point; I saw his point then, to tell you the truth, and shortly afterward I rejected pacifism as just a short-sighted and selfish response.

So far as I could tell, the tale was true.

You don’t need a hi-tech gun to kill.

I kept marine fish for a few years………got to get the salt water right although some tolerate more tropical conditions. All do or die really…..Uk is a very interesting place with fish though as there are very few poisonous animals or fish………….