So many of them

The only thing that kept going through my mind.
The overwhelming trauma of the numbers.
The thousands upon thousands of white crosses.

Verdun.

11 months of systematic butchery. A French generation wiped. A German generation annihilated.

Verdun.

All these bones. So many of them. French and German mingled. Cells filled to the roof with bones. So many of them.

So many of them.

Young men who were born at the tail end of the old century. Born in pain and hope. Babies who survived the infantile diseases. Who turned into boys, who would turn into badly needed strong young arms for the farm work.
Babies, turned into toddlers, turned into boys, turned into men. Barely.
Turned into bones. With gruesome finality.

So many of them.

So many of them.

Verdun.

One battle. In one war. In the past.

Never forget.