My parents did tell me to never engage in lengthy discussions with people who have never experienced war nor the consequences of it, and I of course, didn’t listen.

When I’ve talked about my parents’ experience it has been to show that the worst consequences war has is on ordinary people and generations to come, who are just trying to get by. How many wars started, because the individuals in charge thought they would easily win said war?

It’s not to push an agenda, it is to explain that wars are nasty, complicated and somewhere inbetween innocent people, children with ravaged childhoods and uncertain futures are suffering. It is traumatic; life now is complicated and still painful but unquestionably better.