Over the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about language and it's very difficult, especially when there is an uncomfortable reality behind it.

I'm guilty of saying my twins "Battled life and death", because quite frankly they did.
I think people's objections to this type of language is a fundamental misunderstanding of war.

If you asked my grandad about "The War", his stock answer was "I have no idea how we won".

The Germans were disciplined, efficient and ruthless whilst we were chaotic and incompetent and the regular army was riddled with crooks and cowards whist the officers were incompetent old Etonians. This was his opinion btw. He was there, I was not.
He had no reason to lie to me.

War is not a continuous round of fighting. It's is largely skirmishes stitched together by periods of quiet whilst logistics and battle planning occur. Anyone who has been through ICU like us, would recognise the similarity.

What's unhelpful is perpetuating the British class myth than money or a private education makes you special or gives you some kind of spunk that improves your survival chances. It does not.
Our response to this pandemic is intertwined with Brexit, the other British disease.

I do however believe that some people do have a mental strength, a desire for life so strong that it can give them a better chance of survival. When all hope is lost, they refuse to accept their hands and miraculously pull through.

My mother in law survived cancer a decade before it finally killed her.
All medical hope was gone, last rites etc but she pulled through. Even the medical team acknowledged it was her stubborn determination not to die that swung fate in her favour.

Likewise my son Thomas's progress has been nothing short of incredible. I'd love to take the credit but it's mostly him. He is one of the most profoundly inspirational person I have ever met.

Your mental state and inner drive do affect medical outcomes but this is not related to genetics, your wealth or which school you went to nor is it guaranteed. This disease does not care who it takes out. And no one deserves to die from it.

The language that does offends me however is not the war talk, it's the expendability of "People with underlying health conditions".

When suspected Covid-19 swept through our house, I worried what the statistics would report if any of my children died from it.
Thomas has chronic lung disease and Mia has asthma.

Would they just have become collateral damage in the war against accurate statistics?
Not real casualties at all?
There lives not worthwhile?

And yet a racist, lying, bully of a man has more right to life than them or your friends, families or neighbours?

Now that's the kind of war talk that I find offensive :-(