Chapter 1 - The Lament of the Demobilized

Summary

The end of a war is not just about a societys making peace with its former enemy. It is also about the societys making peace with itself. This begins with welcoming back those who have gone to war, those who must be at peace with themselves and at peace with others over what they have done. My title, The Lament of the Demobilized, is from Vera Brittain, a leading pacifist voice of the twentieth century whose pacifism – I call it soldier pacifism – was grounded in her first-hand experience of war. Such soldier pacifism holds that the grief of knowing war means the soldier can never fully return home, and that this constitutes an indictment of all war. I explore this theme through memoirs, literature, poetry, as well as recent topics in just war theory.