In My Words: ​Drama of human history can put modern ‘miseries’ into perspective

Views expressed in this column are the author’s own and not necessarily those of Elon University. 

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By Tom Nelson

Construction is inconveniencing me during my daily commute to work.  Parking spots are nearly impossible to find among the debris, the service trucks and the general dislocation of the work in progress.  The construction forces me to park a distance from my office and walk to work.

​And I do not like it.

Wandering so far afield each day has if nothing else given me extra moments to exercise self-control. My irritation at the situation could easily develop into anger.  

Long ago in elementary school I had a teacher who taught me that when things get miserable, then put my misery into context by remembering the drama of human history.  It sounds like sophisticated advice for an elementary school student but that’s the kind of school it was and that’s the kind of teacher I had.

I am so grateful for that advice even five decades after it was given to me. 

Think of it as an anger-control strategy as I search for parking.

The detail of that strategy this week is to remind myself that I am one of the lucky ones of history. 

And the prompt from history is the centennial anniversary of the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne in France. 

Back in 1918, right now at this very day and hour, Americans were locked into one of the bloodiest battles of World War One. It took place in a forest of northern France and it cast the American Expeditionary Force against the German army in what proved to be a decisive battle in the Great War. There was spectacular carnage that is now all but forgotten.

That carnage is now artfully disguised at the Meuse-Argonne American cemetery near the French town of Romagne. Row after row of graves from this World War One battle outnumber even the grave plots from the more famous Normandy conflict of World War Two.

Numbers in these matters are hard to tally but many agree the American death toll at the Meuse-Argonne was 26,000. The battle lasted 47 days. It averages out to 554 American soldiers each day. The Germans lost 28,000 soldiers. Together the death toll fills Yankee Stadium.

There are statisticians who say that in the opening three hours of the Meuse-Argonne offensive more heavy and light arms firepower was unleashed by the Americans than during all of the American Civil War. Those same statisticians tell us that opening barrage of explosions cost about a million dollars a minute in today’s currency.

As if this horror is not ponderous enough; consider the Spanish Flu. The Spanish Flu was a

worldwide influenza epidemic that ran in tandem to the closing months of World War One. It  quickly killed more people than the Great War itself. It was in near full bloom during the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne. Many soldiers were infected by it and a good number died of it. 

The awfulness is beyond awful.

There is slight attention given to the American Meuse-Argonne offensive even on its centennial

anniversary. American popular culture gives only a nod to it. Sergeant Alvin York. The Lost Battalion. Devil Dogs. General John Pershing. Eddie Rickenbacker. That’s about the full lexicon of American consciousness when it comes to those 47 hellish days, one century ago, deep within a French forest, toward the end of World War One.  

I need to compare my luck with those chosen in perhaps every sense of that word to fight what was the penultimate battle in an effort to end the war that was to end all wars. Soldiers and civilians endured things that seem unendurable to me.  

 An inconvenient parking spot is not among those things.

So, tomorrow, unlike yesterday, when I am trolling for my remote parking spot, I will use that time to remind myself of events from a century past. A prompt to remember that I am among those touched gently by history when so many others have been slaughtered by it.

That will put me in my parking place.