No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. Muhammad Ali

After much of the day wandering around the area, we ended up at the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc de Triomphe was built – well, started, anyway – by Napoleon Bonaparte to honor the French Army and to celebrate French military victories. It was intended as a grand monument to celebrate the glory of France and its soldiers during the Napoleonic era. 

It made me sad. I half expected to be angry, if anything, but this impressive monument just made me sad. France was not bigger or stronger after its love afair with Napoleon, its borders were the same as they had been in 1792, but it had lost about half a million soldiers (estimates vary wildly). That’s about half a million dead people, mostly young men, for nothing. Well, a little man’s ego, I guess, but other than that, nothing.

By way of disclosure and to be fair, over the years, France has added other sections? items? memorials, such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with an eternal flame, to the Arc de Triomphe.

But, in the end, the Arc de Triomphe is still a memorial to war, to killing, to death. And today, with Russia and Israel trying to kill as many people as they can, it seems especially gruesome.