Sunday scribblings "-the old days"

G'Day,
I m doing this prompt a few days late. You see yesterday I got wrapped up in a book and didn't put it down, literally , all day. It is a book I have read before and one that was made into a mini series for T.V. but it was a while since I last read it. Then I read the Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week.
The old days, the good old days.
Here is am excerpt from the book.

(Even after the car stopped no one moved. They looked so different. For one thing they seemed to have grown inches, which indeed they had, the last few years of their development had occurred far from Drogheda, and had pushed them way above their older brothers. Not boys anymore but men, not in the mold of their brothers. Hardship, battle euphoria and violent death had made something out of them that Drogheda never could. The north African sun had darkened them to a rosy mahogany, peeled away every layer of childhood. Yes it was possible to believe these two men in their simple uniforms, slouch hats pinned above their left ears with the badge of the rising sun , had killed other men. It was in their eyes, blue as Paddy's but sadder, without the gentleness.
"My boys, My boys!" cried Mrs Smith, running to them, tears streaming down her face. No it didn't matter what they had done, how much they had changed; they were still her little babies she had washed and diapered, fed them, whose wounds she had kissed better. Only the wounds that they harbored now were beyond her power to heal.)
I shortened it a bit, but this is a passage from 'The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough.
What I wanted to say about this is "The Good Old Days?"
This passage refers to twin brothers Patsy and Jim returning home to the family property after the second world war.
Looking back through my, limited I admit, knowledge of such times, these sorts of days have continued as far back as history records. Over and over again. Then, there is the ones who don't return home.
Yeah we all love a fight don't we.
Will we ever learn.
Maybe I am just a woman, a mother and a soldier's daughter but....
Don't think I am not patriotic and appreciative of what warriors such as these have done for us.

While we give, gift by birthright or allow mankind to take power over each other there will always be some poor silly patriotic bastard to step up and do their leader's fighting for them. Or maybe not so patriotic, just poor, financially or intellectually, wanting to follow, fight I dunno what ever...by self will or by force.
Out there today, based on the news we receive each night, albeit with a twist to influence, we have a man in North Korea, a government in the middle east, a warrior hiding somewhere in the world, who all want to stir along and continue our demise. There are others, lots of them.
Do you believe that the gods or prophets want us to do this.
To slaughter each other in their names?
Aren't they supposed to love us?
Aren't we made in their images?
Aren't they supposed to tell us to love each other?
Do they only want us to love the ones who are the same colour, creed or religion?
Do we have to prove that we love them by killing the people that don't agree with our or their personal credo?
No! I think not.
Or.. are we just using them as an excuse to do so?
There is some weird, cruel quirk built into our natures as human beings that makes us killers.
Why is it that when things happen anywhere around the world we want to help? Take for example the horrific effects of the recent earth quake in Haiti.
But we justify the same damage done to other places in the name of war? Why?
So many more points I could add into this post.
Yeah... the good old days.
Pftttt!
Bye
Love Linda.