"Winning the war, but losing the
peace" is a well-known maxim in history. It is well known because it
is repeated generation by generation, conflict by conflict, continent
by continent. It brings to mind the daring dynamism that Jesus' beatitude
forcefully stated in Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called the sons of God." Peace, like war, must be waged
with vision, imagination, self-sacrifice and a big dash of hope! One
such peacemaker, U.S. Army Major Steve Russell, is currently "waging
peace" or at least trying to in one of the globe's toughest neighborhoods-the
Balkans. And yes, between you know who-the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians
of Kosovo.
Valerie Reitman, a Los Angeles Times staff
writer, describes Major Russell's vision, sacrifice and frustration
in an article titled "Kosovo Harvest Yields Bounty of Ethnic Mistrust" (Los
Angeles Times, August 22).
Let's read his story, which is a good
illustration of the self-sacrificing and painstaking blow-by-blow
steps real leaders of vision must employ to establish the peace.
Not presidents, dignitaries or committees that come and go, sign
treaties and go home to a distant land, but the real, on-the-scene
person who strives to accomplish the "grunt work" of day-by-day,
sometimes moment-by-moment hand-holding of people who only know how
to hate one another. I think you will find his work informative,
educational and very real-because even though "good guys don't always
come in first," they are the first to keep on trying, because it's
the right thing to do.
