Today is Veterans Day. The actual day rather than the observed holiday. It was Armistice Day and nearly 20 million human beings gave their lives to make it happen so I think we owe it to them at the very least to remember.
I said pretty much everything I had to say on the subject back in 2004:
But before it was Veterans’ Day November 11 was Armistice Day and as such it commemorates the conclusion of World War I, The Great War. On November 11, 1918 the World War War I Allies signed an armistice with Germany and the greatest war the world had known up to that time concluded.
World War I was not a war of necessity. It was a war of choice. It could be argued that America entered the war because of the sinking of the Lusitania or because Germany was trying to drum up trouble with our neighbor to the south or to demonstrate that America had arrived, at last, on the world stage. But the real reason that America entered The Great War was that it was the right thing to do and, as a member of the world community, sometimes you just have to do the right thing.
In 2005 I collected the very best quotations on the virtues of soldiers that I could find. Good material to reflect on.
Worthy Veterans Day posts:
The Moderate Voice
QandO Blog remembers non-combat veterans.
I’ll link to others as I identify them.
