Forgetting is one of the reasons “never again” keeps happening.

“Never again.”

Those two words were supposed to be a promise, not just a slogan. After the Holocaust, after the liberation of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Dachau, and the long trail of human ashes across Europe, the world said it had learned its lesson. The words were repeated in schoolbooks, on monuments, and at memorials: never again.

But history doesn’t have a long attention span. Humanity forgets. And that’s how “never again” keeps happening.

The Cycle of Forgetting

The recent release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas brings the Israel–Hamas war to what the world hopes is its end. The images of gaunt, traumatized civilians stepping back into the sunlight are hard to watch, not just because of what they endured, but because of what they remind us of.

Hostages in basements. Civilians targeted for who they are, not what they’ve done. Propaganda painting entire populations as “less than human.” None of this is new. It’s a pattern the world has seen over and over again, from the concentration camps of the 1940s to the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda, the massacres in Bosnia, the internment of the Uyghurs in China, and now, once again, the blood-soaked soil of the Middle East.

Each time, we swear it won’t happen again. Each time, we forget.

The Dangerous Comfort of Time

Forgetting isn’t always intentional. It’s a kind of self-defense. People move on not because they don’t care, but because they can. The ones who remember most clearly are often the ones who suffered, and as their generation fades, so does the memory.

The Holocaust survivors who once stood in classrooms and told their stories are nearly all gone now. The survivors of the Killing Fields are diminishing. The voices of those who survived the Rwanda genocide are fading. And the list goes on. In their absence, myths and distortions grow. History gets flattened into political talking points. The lessons of atrocity get lost in the noise of social media outrage and geopolitical spin. And soon, the next generation, protected from — and therefore disconnected from — the horror starts to believe that humanity has somehow evolved beyond it.

That’s when it happens again.

The Military Knows This Lesson Well

Those of us who’ve worn the uniform have seen what happens when people forget. I’ve been in places where the ground still holds the bones of old wars, where tribal hatred, ethnic division, and religious zealotry outlast governments, treaties, and peacekeeping missions.

The uniform doesn’t make you wise, but it gives you a front-row seat to human nature. And human nature, left unchecked, has a dark default setting. When we forget what we’re capable of, we start to believe we’re incapable of it. That’s when the killing starts. It’s not in the camps or the trenches at first, but in the words people use, in the lies they tell, and in the convenient blindness of the majority.

“Never Again” Is a Command, Not a Cliché

The end of the Israel–Hamas war should be a moment for relief, yes, but also reflection. The war was fueled by hatred, misinformation, and ancient grievances reborn in modern form. The suffering was immense, and much of it was avoidable.

If “never again” is to mean anything, it can’t depend on memory alone. Memory fades. What must replace it is vigilance — the active, uncomfortable willingness to confront evil when it starts whispering, not when it starts killing.

That’s a lesson the world seems determined to relearn the hard way, over and over. But maybe, just maybe, this time we’ll remember long enough to make “never again” mean exactly that.

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Charles served over 27 years in the US Army, which included seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units and two stints as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also completed operational tours in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea and earned a Doctor of Business Administration from Temple University as well as a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. He is the owner of The Havok Journal, and the views expressed herein are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.