A year before the Berlin Wall came down, I was traveling in a German tourist bus with my Bavarian girlfriend, Manuella, to visit Paris. The trip from Augsburg was long and she was asleep as I stared out the window at the passing villages, shrubbery, and hills.

The bus drove by one region that consisted of gently rolling hills, dwarfed trees, dried-up bushes, and brown grass. Moreover, the area reeked of death. Many men had lost their lives there. Yet, I had never before seen this blighted scenery.

I wanted to ask Manu-her name shortened-about the sight, but she was asleep. At the next rest stop, the passengers got out to stretch their legs and use the WC's. I then asked Manu if she was familiar with a desolate stretch of land so many kilometers back.

She said, "Yes. That is the sight of some of the biggest battles of World War One."

What told me that this was a plot of ground where many had lost their lives? Was it the screaming spirits of the dead? What informed me that battles had taken place in this netherworldly region? The fact that the mustard gas killed all animal and plant life there forever?

The Treaty of Versailles, which racked and ruined Germany, caused World War One to be the Unfinished War. The Nazis found a scapegoat for their failure: Jews. The infamous treaty and the German conquest for more land led to World War Two.

After WWII, the Cold War commenced. In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, the Berlin Wall having come down in 1989.

In 1991, with no announcement or trumpeting, the War on Terror started. Today's problems in the Middle East can be traced directly back to World War One, after which the region's borders were haphazardly drawn.

I climbed a mountain in southern Bavaria and saw a plaque commemorating the event of World War One. It read: We almost made it, brother. We almost had the world for ourselves.

As long as nations covet the ground and resources of other nations, there will certainly be wars. After the end of the War on Terror, there will be another major war. Maybe more than one.