of the eleventh month. Today we call it “Veteran’s Day” but it originally commemorated the armistice that concluded the First World War and was called “Armistice Day”. Lest we forget.
The image above is my grandfather’s draft card. World War I marked the greatest mobilization of Americans up to that point in our history and with it we were thrust onto the international stagel, I would say to our detriment. I suspect that much of the world would agree with me.
Today marks the centenary of that armistice. Americans, with our characteristic disdain for history, are in danger of abandoning any memory of that war. The last American veteran of that war, Frank Buckle, died in 2011. The last known veteran of that war died in 2012. Today few of the living have any actual memory of that war at all.
Among the reasons we should not forget World War I is the contrast Americans experienced between us and our European cousins. In our officer corps scions of wealthy families were as likely to rub elbows with sons of farmboys as not. Maj. MacArthur, son of a prominent Texas military family, served. So did Lt. Dwight Eisenhower, son of a Texas/Kansas clerk. They were both West Point graduates.
It wasn’t like that with the British or French officer corps and their treatment of their troops and ours when they came under European command showed it. The treatment of colonial soldiers, Aussies and Kiwis, by their British officers was notoriously casual of their lives. It was even worse for the Indian soldiers who served in Europe. Of the 130,000 Indian troops who served in France, 9,000 died.
Our more egalitarian military was an advantage and that’s an advantage we are recklessly casting away as our society becomes more stratified. It ignores that the sons of the aristocracy can be dolts while the sons of farmers can be brilliant.
If for no other reason we should remember World War I as an object lesson.
We may have been better, but we were also way too casual with our troop deaths. Remember Harry Gunther.
http://www.historynet.com/world-war-i-wasted-lives-on-armistice-day.htm
Indeed; lest we forget.
Countries remember differently. France, Germany, the Commonwealth remember very well – WW1 is seared into collective memory there like the Civil War is for Americans. And even for Americans; more died in WW1 then in Vietnam.
John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields; Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Ernest Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms are all good pieces of writing left by those who took part in that war.
Indeed CuriousOnlooker, the French apparently have few of the reservations that Anglo-Americans have about the war, and probably mostly believe its Anglo-America’s turn against the war that permitted German resurgence (thanks to Mr. Keynes’ best-selling book).
Australians and New Zealanders recognize Anzad Day, to commemorate the landing on Gallipoli. In Ulster, they commemorate the day that theirs went over the top at the Battle of the Somme and were massacred, a day that corresponds with a religious conflict. Poland recognizes Armistice Day as a day of independence and has been broadcasting commercials in the U.S. as a gesture of thanks.
For Canadians; it’s Vimy Ridge; the first time Canadians battled as one unit and won.
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen, 1893 – 1918
The centenary is what I choose to remember. In some places, the Great War still has not ended. It’s hard to believe that parts of France, the Zone Rouge, are still uninhabitable as a consequence of that war. Nagasaki was rebuilt, Hiroshima was rebuilt, but the Zone Rouge is still deadly and parts will be unsafe for human habitation for centuries to come.
As far as the US goes, I’m frankly growing disillusioned with the shallow support for veterans in this country. I’m tired of being thanked and asked to stand to be clapped at. I don’t need discounts, free meals, and special parking places. It’s really gotten out of hand.
Fracking parking places for veterans! I wish people would call their elected representatives instead of constantly thanking me. Most of the vets I know feel the same way.
Let me second that. If you really care about veterans and the military, get us out of and dont get us into stupid wars. I feel like we are mostly used by these people as a way to prove that they are patriotic or care about the country, or something.
Steve