People thought WW3 would be nuclear, a rogue nation with a big huge bomb.  Instead the world is now at war with a micro-organism that we cannot see, smell or hear.    It has swept in silently, like a snow squall on a winter’s day, blanketing our world in contagion.

The World is at WAR against COVID19.

The front lines are not traditional battlefields, the front lines are hospital wards,  emergency rooms, and makeshift hospital tents.  Our soldiers are not wearing camouflage they are wearing scrubs.  Our soldiers are also wearing the uniform of sanitation workers and grocery story clerks.  Our soldiers are our children learning in front of a computer screen at their kitchen table instead of in a classroom.  Our soldiers are you and me.

I was not alive when WW2 was waged, but I’ve heard family members’ stories and I paid attention in history class.  As their loved ones went off to battle, some never to return, every citizen found a way to contribute to the war effort.

We are waging a very different war now.  I am heartened to see the stories of people innovating and creating new face shields, and ventilation helmets, and fabric coverings for masks.  I am thankful for the family farmers who are supplying food to their local communities.  I am grateful for the teachers who are innovating and teaching virtually.  I am also heartened by all the people who are staying home and I pray more will do so.  Staying home might feel like you are doing nothing, but really we are doing the very best thing, stopping the spread.

The enemy is here.  The enemy has invaded silently, like snow.  We were not ready.  We have been caught walking down a sunny street in a sweater as snow blankets races toward us. We are fighting from behind.  And, if we do not act collectively, we as a nation, and a world, will face catastrophic death, loss and a forever changed landscape.  However, if we DO rally the wartime American spirit, work together as a nation and a world community, then we can keep the death toll down and ensure that once the enemy is under control, humanity will  be able to find a way back to life.  Not life as we knew it, but life as we will come to know it.

Life, not death. Just like life returns after a snow squall that leaves as silently as it came, life will return. The day will look different but the sun will rise, melt the snow and warm our souls.