Today is Veterans Day, when those of us in the United States of America celebrate all the men and women who have served in the United States Navy, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Space Force.
Veterans Day was originally known as Armistice Day to mark the end of World War I (remember being taught that World War I ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month?). President Woodrow Wilson issued a message to the people of the United States on that very first Armistice Day, in which he expressed what he felt the day meant to Americans:
“To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the council of nations.”
Congress passed a law on May 13, 1938 which officially made November 11th a legal holiday, “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day’.”
Unfortunately, World War I wasn’t the “war to end all wars” as everyone had believed. World War II veteran Raymond Weeks had the idea to celebrate all veterans on Armistice Day, not just those who died in World War I. Weeks led the first celebration in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, a tradition that he continued until his death in 1985. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who signed a bill on May 26, 1954 to recognize November 11th as Veterans Day, a national holiday. President Ronald Reagan awarded Weeks the Presidential Citizenship Medal in 1982 as the driving force for the national holiday.
Importantly, while the holiday is commonly printed as “Veteran’s Day” (with an apostrophe before the letter ‘s’), the official spelling is “Veterans Day” (without the apostrophe), as the holiday is not a day that belongs to veterans, but rather a day to honor all veterans. Also, the term “veteran” is defined as “a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.” In other words, even if you only served in peace time and never war time, you are still a veteran.
For those of you who’ve followed my posts in the past, you know that I like quotes. I looked for a few that I thought were particularly relevant for this year's Veterans Day. General Douglas MacArthur said, "The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." The tennis player Arthur Ashe said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." The writer Tom Clancy said, "The U.S. military is us. There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it. The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they're protecting us."
Lastly, I want to end today's post with a poem by the English poet Alfred Noyes. It's one of his most famous poems, and the words are hauntingly poignant for a day to celebrate veterans. The poem was written either during or shortly after World War I. The narrator is a survivor of that war, and he is visiting a battlefield littered with the dead from both sides. It's called "On the Western Front" and its message is important:
I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;
For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,
Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;
Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,
Rank after rank, it seemed that peace was there;
Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,
The peace of tides that underlie our strife,
The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,
The peace that is our everlasting life.
The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.
The silence of the dead was all I heard.
We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.
To all your praises we are deaf and blind.
We may not ever know if you betray
Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.
Only our silence, in the night, shall grow
More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;
And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know
How many scornful legions pass you by.
For we have heard you say (when we were living)
That some small dream of good would “cost too much.”
But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving,
And seen you move the mountains with one touch.
What can be done, we know. But, have no fear!
If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.
In honor of all those who have served, the living and the dead, we owe them our gratitude. We owe them our praise. We owe them our love. But most of all, we owe it to them not to fail in the task to which they gave up their lives. We owe it to them to keep pushing for a better world. We owe it to them to keep pushing for peace.
Happy Veterans Day to all!
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