Battle on the Gridiron is Nothing Like War

I will never again compare football to war. The metaphor of comparing a sport to war just shows the civilian ignorance of what war entails. The saying really is an injustice to any soldier who's seen action during wartime. Here's a quote from a Lieutenant Yaron Nili who was about 30 yards away when a rocket hit in Israel killing 12 and wounding six Sunday:

"We heard a low whistle, then a blast and then a shock wave, and you felt the air moving past your face, it was hell."

That one quote put football and sports in their true perspectives for me. Football is a controlled and competitive game between young hired athletes. War is an uncontrollable hell of mostly involuntary young men. The bottom line is that Athletes get hurt during competition, soldiers die during battle.

World War II vets who played professional football knew this truth (Art Donovan said it in an NFL interview years ago) and its time I stop letting my emotions about football impede my reality of life.

I only wish that countries could settle their differences by playing football instead of engaging in war.