CONVERSATIONS WITH NICK ABOUT WAR

NICK: I WANNA WATCH TANKS ON YOUTUBE!

ME: *sigh* Okay. Here’s a video of toy tanks shooting paint balls at each other. This is a good one.

NICK: No! I wanna see toy tanks and they shoot paint balls at army men and cars that are going too fast!

ME: Tanks don’t really do that.

NICK: Dad? I wanna see real tanks roll over cars AND SHOOT THE BAD GUYS AFTER THE BAD GUYS ROBBED A BANK!

ME: You see…tanks don’t really do that kind of thing.

NICK: You can’t find ANYTHING on youtube!

ME: Hang on. I’ll find something.

NICK: GUNS! BULLETS! GUNS! BULLETS!

ME: Whose child are you?

NICK: Go back to the last thing! I want to see that one with the tank!

ME: Okay… this is a documentary about real tanks. I’ll start it but if it gets too violent, I’ll have to turn it off.

NICK: SHOOT THE TANKS FOR REAL! REAL TANKS!

ME: Okay. Here it is.

NICK: Daddy?

ME: Yes.

NICK: What is that tank?

ME: They said that’s a tank called “The Elephant.”

NICK: Is it a good guy?

ME: Tanks aren’t really good guys or bad guys. This is a tank that doesn’t work anymore that they’re trying to fix.

NICK: Why doesn’t it work?

ME: It was in a battle so it doesn’t work.

NICK: Did the good guys have it?

ME: Well, the German’s had it. And the Americans were in a war against the Germans.

NICK: Was Germany cheating???

ME: Yes.. They were trying to take everyone over so we went to war with them.

NICK: And then we got the tank!

ME: Yes.

NICK: Dad? Armies don’t really kill.

ME: Actually…yes they do.

NICK: They just kill bad guys.

ME: Not…not really. Good guys get killed too.

NICK: I WANNA GO IN THE ARMIES!

ME: I don’t want you to go in the army.

NICK: Why?

ME: I don’t want you to get hurt.

NICK: But dad… I won’t shoot anybody. I’ll go and I’ll tell the bad guys to stop shooting.

ME: That would be good if you could do that.

NICK: WHEN WE HAVE WAR WITH GERMANY AGAIN I WILL STOP THEM! BECAUSE I WILL STOP THEM SO THEY CAN’T TAKE OUR TANKS!

ME: Good idea.But we really don’t want to go to war. War is not good. It’s a very bad thing.

NICK: But America will always win.

ME: Not always.

NICK: Why?

ME: Sometimes America wins, sometimes it loses. Sometimes we say we win even win we lose.

NICK: Daddy?

ME: Yes.

NICK: America is very, very fragile.