The 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month. Today is Armistice Day, Veterans Day, and Remembrance Day. Almost 100 million dead in the Wars of the 20th and 21st centuries-an astounding number. “Either war is finished-or we are.“
I do understand the difference between Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, but I prefer to refer to the 11th of November by its name in the Commonwealth, Remembrance Day. I understand the desire to honor veterans and reflect upon their service – but we cannot truly honor that service if we don’t resolve to build a better nation and world from that service.
It is especially a poignant day this year – when the nation has been given a glimmer of hope of liberation from the forces of tyranny that were threatening the United States for the last 4 years.
I too, like many people will put up a picture of me in uniform. Unlike some, however, this year the posting of such a picture will not be the totally joyous act of pride that it appears to be for some. Because, and especially in view of the events of the last four years, I can’t help but keep asking myself: “What was it all for? What if anything, did we really accomplish? Where is the better and safer world we were supposed to striving for?“
Sure, for many of us, myself included, the military was a fair trade. We got skills, excitement, friends, and adventures in exchange for a paycheck and the distinct possibility of dying in the line of duty. But it was supposed to be for a purpose, for the hope of a better and saner world where our children would not have to waste the resources on conflict and could use them instead for achievement. The last 25 years’ events have shown us just how screwed up that line of thinking was – especially the last 10 years.
At least this year – for however brief an interval – we can have a thread of hope. Hope, that experience tells me, will be dashed – but we will no longer have some truly unworthy people at the levers of power as a consolation.
Because if we seek to honor the sacrifices of the brave Soldiers, Sailors, Airman, and Marines -we must also ask ourselves what are we doing to make this country a better place to live for their children and their families. For, in the end, that was what all were fighting to defend, a free society that improves itself, not simply falls back into the evils, they fought so hard to protect us from.
There is a passage written in a book by Andrew Bacevich that I wrote about some six years ago. It is still appropriate – although, in a perfect world, we would have corrected the problem he cited here:
Americans once believed war to be a great evil. Whenever possible, war was to be avoided. When circumstances made war unavoidable, Americans wanted peace swiftly restored.
Present-day Americans, few of them directly affected by events in Iraq or Afghanistan, find war tolerable. They accept it. Since 9/11, war has become normalcy. Peace has become an entirely theoretical construct. A report of G.I.s getting shot at, maimed, or killed is no longer something the average American gets exercised about. Rest assured that no such reports will interfere with plans for the long weekend that Memorial Day makes possible.
We have to do better as a nation. We have to. As I have written several times here: “It may have been a great adventure to have participated – but I never should have had the opportunity.” This means: War should have been cast aside from our toolkit a long time ago and the world has to fine a saner way to run this planet.
I won’t live to see the day we put aside war forever – but oh, how I wish to. Let us close with this homily from my favorite American political writer:
As much as I admire the idea of honoring veterans, like my father, I’ve always believed that Armistice Day should have remained Armistice Day, a holiday commemorating the negotiated end of five years of largely pointless slaughter that, in the long view of history, was undertaken for the purpose of setting up the world for even more extensive carnage 20 years later. Armistice Day celebrated the end of a war, for the moment, anyway. It celebrated when the guns went silent, at least for a while. That seems to me to be the best tribute to all veterans, living and dead—to celebrate a world temporarily without war, at least for one small space of time, one slice of human eternity that doesn’t bleed and die.
Anyway, here’s to them all, in keeping with the original spirit of the day. May they all know peace, all the living and the dead, and may they all revel in the silence of the guns. And here’s the late Liam Clancy, with the finest antiwar song ever written.
