Sassoon's Declaration: "the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not enough imagination to realise."

 “Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as he best can, the same cause,... who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.” Abraham Lincoln

 I carry that one with me... Sassoon's declaration remains true. Most at home do not share the soldiers'agonies. Most. But not all. I think that is why the feelings of alienation and separation, of being "apart," are so profound for those that do. Not a soldier. But not quite a 'civilian' either. Soldiers can only meet you halfway in terms of 'what it was like' and only the rare civilian can even enter the conversation. And no matter what you did do, it never feels like enough, even when someone hands you a quote to remind you. When it ends there is a gaping hole where that intensity and sense of purpose lived. There is a knot that remains buried within you. The war lives in small things, like hands that shake slightly when the topic comes up. But who will ask the citizen who cared for her brother in the field, who braved the storms that came, why her hands shake? Only her brother. Maybe. Ignorance and casual indifference will mean most of those stories will never be told. After all, the voices of callous complacency say you just sent care packages...