something happened on Christmas Eve in 1914 in the trenches World War one
during the Battle of Ypres and world war one was the most sickening of wars as
far as I can tell a world of death and destruction and fire and pain and mud
and suffering and as the British prepared for an attack that Christmas
Eve they heard the Germans their enemy across the way and they heard the
Germans laughing and singing Christmas carols and eventually the Germans called
out come on over Tommy which is slang for a British soldier and they said we
won't fire at you and eventually the British cautiously started to head over
and the Germans came out and started to head over they head toward each other
and eventually they all met in no-man's land when they got there they talked and
they laughed and they sang and they joked and they told stories and the
legend is that they even played some soccer and most important at that moment
they saw each other as humans as fellow human beings
and eventually as the morning came on they all went back to their trenches and
when they got back to their trenches they put down their weapons they sat
there and they they yelled jokes back and forth and they in fight and for a
couple days there was peace and the soldiers thought to themselves what are
we even fighting for how did we end up here and why are we killing each other
and these soldiers on both sides the Germans and the British realized that
there supposedly monstrous enemy they were just other men other men with
different backgrounds and different cultures and different languages but
they realized that their enemy were just men like them they realized that they
were all people and on the third day the Germans were ordered from High Command
to shoot their machine guns and so the Germans told the British what time they
were gonna shoot and they said they were gonna shoot high so the British should
get low and take cover around that certain time to make sure nobody got
hurt and that's what happened the Germans shot high and no one got
hurt in another couple of days of peace went by but then an order came from the
British headquarters and it said that anyone found
fraternizing with the enemy would be court-martialed and if they were not
fighting the enemy and they were found guilty of that they would be executed
and the generals got their way they got what they wanted and that night the war
the horrendous war on that patch of land commenced again and the bombs and the
mortars and the fire and the bullets
they all came to extract their toll and
destroy and maim and kill these men on both sides
and that is an awful end to a beautiful story it takes that beautiful story and
turns it into a nightmare
but in that story there's a glimpse of hope the hope is that we as human beings
can see other people as human beings and then know we can and I know it's not
always easy but we need to do this on both sides of the trenches and if you're
a protester looking at a police officer or looking at a National Guard soldier
please take a moment to remember that that police officer or that soldier is a
son or a father or a mother or a daughter or a brother or a sister
remember that that soldier or that officer is a person and if you are a
police officer or you're a soldier and you're looking at a protester or even a
rioter please please remember the same thing that you are looking at a person a
person like you a person with a family a person with aspirations a person with
hope a person with pain and sadness and joy and misery a person with hate and a
person with love
a person like you look it can be easy to dehumanize others and when we determine
eyes we separate people from who we are from what we are and it becomes easy to
hate them because they are different from us well I'm telling you they are
not that different the person you are looking at that is a person and yes
they're angry and yes they're frustrated yes they're scared and they're tired and
they're fed up and they're aggravated and they're full of potential and they
are deeply flawed in other words they are a person just like you
please remember that be safe out there
and try to take care of one another