Makes you wonder - How can anything justify war?

Last December, I visited the War Cemetery in Kohima. Walking in this serene place going from grave to grave (1420 of them) and reading the messages from their near ones makes you wonder, how can anything justify war? Where regardless of the outcome, thousands of lives are gone forever. Even concepts like patriotism seem like smart man made ideas to put a fellow mans life in danger

Reading the age at which these people lost their lives, the families they left behind and their mostly brave, always-poignant messages make you think, of how the families would have coped. With losing their son, husband, brother in the prime of their lives.

Visiting the cemetery, I'm sure is a way for affected family members to get some closure on their loss - we saw some of them spending some quiet time at the grave of the ones they had lost.

A few months ago, I received an email as a response to this photograph I had posted as a part of a review of that visit. The sender, overwhelmed by recognizing the tombstone in my picture as the one belonging to a relative, was writing to express gratitude of their family to me for the post.

It rekindled the same feelings I felt while at the cemetery, and I realized that through that picture and mail I'd become a small part of that family's healing.