Most war stories talk about guns and borders, but nobody counts the women who stitch uniforms with fingers cut from machine needles running 18 hours a day. I’ve seen girls my own daughters’ age in Ethiopia, in Yemen, sewing sandbags and camouflage while their schools burn. War doesn’t just kill you with bullets—it kills your future with hunger, with no light to read by, with cloth meant for dresses turned into body bags. The men shout strategy and honor, but the cost is paid in skipped meals and unpaid rent and children learning to thread a needle before they learn to write. I know sewing. I know silence. And I know how fast joy unravels when the power goes out and the generator fuel runs dry. War wins when we stop mending what matters.
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