Today, of course, is Veterans’ Day. I won’t attempt to tell you what the holiday celebrates or what the sacrifices of our veterans mean to us. The White House press release does that just fine. Joe Katzman of Winds of Change has a fine round-up of resources on Veterans’ Day (or Remembrance Day as Canadians call it) particularly from a Canadian point-of-view.
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.
Look at the table below:
American deaths in World War I 126,000 American participation in war in days 585 Deaths per day 215
Yes, that’s right. We had as many deaths (on average) in five days of World War I as we’ve had in the more-than-a-year-and-a-half of the Iraq War.
America’s greatest entertainer of the day, George M. Cohan, wrote a song—Over There—to stiffen the resolve of the troops and of the nation for the conflict. He was decorated for it.
Fewer than 700 of the young Americans that went over there are alive today. And so Armistice Day which became a national holiday in 1938 has been transmogrified over time into Veterans Day. But I recommend that you spend a little time today thinking about those American soldiers who went over there so long ago. And about doing the right thing. Then think about the young Americans who are over there in Iraq right now and what it will mean to the people of Iraq if their mission over there fails.
The only force in the world which can cause that failure is the failure of our resolve.
UPDATE: Submitted to Beltway Traffic Jam.
