ABSTRACT
One consequence of war is human displacement. This has always been the case, as earliest records show. Homer’s conquering Greek heroes of The Iliad were forced away from their homes and loved ones for ten years awaiting the fall of Troy. The defeated Trojans were displaced en masse as their city was sacked. Although these stories are myths, they hold fundamental truths about the experience of war through the centuries. Even in the medieval world, major battles rarely took place on the doorsteps of those participating. The rank and fi le, the ordinary soldiers, the cannon fodder, were always required to leave their homes, displacing themselves from all that they knew in order to carry out the necessary service to their Lord. Through the centuries, women and children have been left behind to fend for themselves as their menfolk were called away or, worse, uprooted from their homes to make way for some advancing army.
