Commanders in far-off war-rooms issue orders as if the supply of khaki-clad boys were limitless. Bravely they do as they are told, charging bunkers, strafing airfields, storming beaches. By the tens of thousands they fall, sons, brothers, fathers, uncles. Too many to send home, too many to identify–nameless heroes planted reverently in some farmer’s field. In perpetual anonymity they rest, their final slumber deep, if not peaceful.
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Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction prompt for this week was the word “limitless.” When I visited the WWI battlefields near Ypres, Belgium, earlier this year, the rows of gravestones of unknown soldiers buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery seemed limitless to me. No surprise, I guess, since there are nearly 12,000 headstones, 8,300 of which are nameless. The waste of human life took my breath away as I tried to imagine the families back home who were left with empty arms and were not even given the cold comfort of a gravesite to visit in return.
My five sentences didn’t emerge as fiction…my apologies for that.
Things I See and Know 
Od Liam
July 31, 2013 at 3:23 AM
Sadly truthful!
This is the recurrent history of humankind.
The caves crowds, the Greek State Cities, the Roman Empire, the Crusades, WWI, WWII, to name a few, all those wasted lives!
Since the Ape learned to use a bone as a weapon, never ceased to destroy its own kind.
I must believe there is a reason for this crazy circumstances, even if a crazy reason!
Your work is beautiful in a gloomy way, thank you for bringing it to mind!
Od Liam
dreaminofobx
July 31, 2013 at 1:20 PM
I ask myself why we (humans) are each so convinced that our way is the only way, and why we feel we must fight and kill to force others to agree. With each new war in the world, I find myself hoping we will come to our senses and be content to live and let live, but as you pointed out, history sure doesn’t seem to support that hope.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment!