lessons and old men

there's a saying that goes, when you want to learn more of life, you should talk to the old ones. i never really had the privilege of talking to old people in my life. i grew up away from my extended family. i only got to see my grandparents a couple of times in my whole life. some people may feel close to their grandparents, like my cousins, but not i. and so i guess i missed, and still missing, the lessons that could be learned from their experiences. i know for sure, that they have great stories to tell. in some ways, it is unlucky that i don't know my grandparents that well.

yet, in the quirky way of things, i'm glad that i was given the chance to know an exceptionally old man. i have talked of him before in this blog. in his prime, he was thought to be a terror teacher but now, when he grew older (and when his heart started to fail him), he became quite amiable and less scary to talk to. it is a privilege to get to know this person. in his old age, his mind is sharper than mine.

so what life lessons have i learned from him? i don't know yet but last friday, he talked of the past and it was quite -- striking. he talked of the last world war. aside from my grandparents, i don't know anybody who experienced the war. for me, it was a long, long time ago, way even before my parents were born. it was a great war during the time of his youth, a time when he was still barely an adult. yet, i can't help but think that maybe, people grow up fast during wars.

during the war, he said, when the japanese arrived to take over manila, his parents decided to bring them to the nearby province to avoid the war. yet everywhere, one sees the war. at times, they would see fighter planes fly above their areas in their distinct jet sounds. when these jets fire their artillery guns or dropped bombs, one can hear the sudden whistle sound before the big boom sounds off in the nearby town. at more than one point in those years of war, they had to go down the excavated ditch to avoid being hit at but there were no guarantees because overhead, the planes are still firing. for those civilians who were hit, they were just simply casualties of war.

the americans killed more civilians than the japanese. this was his opinion because for the former, once they see their target, they start shooting until everything near it was destoyed. he once witnessed american soldiers firing at two japanese soldiers stationed at an abandoned building. they fired until nothing of the building was left. they were ruthless. the latter on the other hand, although not blameless, have gathered the males and killed them together. in my way thinking, everybody were the losers in this war.

when the war was over, he went off to college in a school that the americans helped build. staying in one of the dormitories, he wakes up at night all sweaty and still thinking that he was still in the war. when he looks back at it today, he realizes that even civilians experience post-traumatic syndrome, much as the same way the soldiers who fought in the iraq war are experiencing now.

the last world war had a great impact on the world yet to the individual persons who experienced it, it was a life-altering experience. it is something that one can never take away. the only thing that they can do is just bring the best out of humanity and make sure that this will never happen for the next generations.

it was the worst of times, that's for sure, and i hope that with this telling, i have gained a little more insight of what was once, and maybe someday use this knowledge to understand people better.