HOW arresting, and true is Sue Plester's article headlined "War is a futile waste of lives".

Congratulations are also due to her for her emphasis in her opening paragraph, on how warring nations can heal divisions caused by war.

Her two columns illustrate this in the case of Germany, telling the story well. This deals with Europe.

There was yet another vastly different theatre of war with completely different enemies -- the Japanese. Like many others, I spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war.

It is quite another situation to become reconciled, much harder to forgive the treatment we had, but not impossible, and absolutely necessary if one is a committed Christian, taking Jesus' words seriously and becoming a peace-maker.

One cannot forget the experiences we had, but if we let them rankle inside ourselves they can embitter us for life, instead of achieving a sense of harmony or peace with ourselves as we near the time when we "meet the Maker".

A healing process can take place even with prisoners of war whose minds may have been made up many years ago. I was a member -- once. What do others think?

BOB GUY,

The Drive,

Harlow.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.