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1954. Armistice Day, celebrating the ending of the fighting on 11/11/1918 at 11:11, was the end of the non-discussion parts of The Great War. It became celebrated as a holiday in America in 1926, and as a national holiday in 1938. In 1954 it was changed to become a holiday for all veterans. It is a holiday still celebrated in France and Britain.
In the declaration of 1954, the President dedicated this day to Peace. All traffic should stop at 11:11, and flags should be flown on public buildings. A ceremony is held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where the president lays a wreath to war dead.
That should be happening right now.
A moments musing on service, war and peace.
We are all shaped by our life experiences, growing in whatever way as we move through them. Before our modern age, and in less priveledged places, a major gate was the transition from boy to man, often known as the Warrior's gate, when a boy gives up toys and takes up weapons, and with them responsibility--to risk his life for his tribe. As our society had become more industrialized, and all jobs become specialist jobs, we've lost that gate, and the concommitant commitment to responsibility.
Of course, it could be worse--I refer to Ethan Stock's "Thug Rule" here
http://onohoku.blogspot.com/2004/10/thug-rule.html
Regardless, those who pass through the Warrior's Gate with the Armed Services come out changed men, and most certainly men. Almost always, I would argue, changed in a positive way. They have been held responsible. They have used weapons of destruction, and experienced the actual effects. They have been responsible.
Those who served in actual combat have had these experiences redoubled, and possibly added nearby death, or loss.
While wars themselves are not good (the failure of diplomacy), good can come from them. Good from the immediate goals of the war: stop the pirates of Tripoli, secure banana production in Guatemala, sell newspapers in New York by inflating the Cuban threat, repel the invading tax collecting British, stop genocide...but one of the real benefits has nothing to do with the goals of the war.
Warriors return. Men (and now women) from all walks of life who have experienced war, who have been tested on that forge. And they are stronger.
Historically, democracies are weak before wars, strong towards the end of them. We are no longer in America truely in a democracy, but in a oligarchy of corporate bodies: the military-industrial complex warned about after World War II by many generals.
Still, war returns to us soldiers, who change the world, as they are changed men.
The booms of the 20's with integration and investment and creation (Jazz, anyone?) and the 50's with the Best and the Brightest, and even the late 60's counterculture, owe a lot to those who came back from conflict.
****
Be that all as it may. Thank you for serving, Dad, Louis and Kurt. My immediate family who has been through the gate.
In the declaration of 1954, the President dedicated this day to Peace. All traffic should stop at 11:11, and flags should be flown on public buildings. A ceremony is held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where the president lays a wreath to war dead.
That should be happening right now.
A moments musing on service, war and peace.
We are all shaped by our life experiences, growing in whatever way as we move through them. Before our modern age, and in less priveledged places, a major gate was the transition from boy to man, often known as the Warrior's gate, when a boy gives up toys and takes up weapons, and with them responsibility--to risk his life for his tribe. As our society had become more industrialized, and all jobs become specialist jobs, we've lost that gate, and the concommitant commitment to responsibility.
Of course, it could be worse--I refer to Ethan Stock's "Thug Rule" here
http://onohoku.blogspot.com/2004/10/thug-rule.html
Regardless, those who pass through the Warrior's Gate with the Armed Services come out changed men, and most certainly men. Almost always, I would argue, changed in a positive way. They have been held responsible. They have used weapons of destruction, and experienced the actual effects. They have been responsible.
Those who served in actual combat have had these experiences redoubled, and possibly added nearby death, or loss.
While wars themselves are not good (the failure of diplomacy), good can come from them. Good from the immediate goals of the war: stop the pirates of Tripoli, secure banana production in Guatemala, sell newspapers in New York by inflating the Cuban threat, repel the invading tax collecting British, stop genocide...but one of the real benefits has nothing to do with the goals of the war.
Warriors return. Men (and now women) from all walks of life who have experienced war, who have been tested on that forge. And they are stronger.
Historically, democracies are weak before wars, strong towards the end of them. We are no longer in America truely in a democracy, but in a oligarchy of corporate bodies: the military-industrial complex warned about after World War II by many generals.
Still, war returns to us soldiers, who change the world, as they are changed men.
The booms of the 20's with integration and investment and creation (Jazz, anyone?) and the 50's with the Best and the Brightest, and even the late 60's counterculture, owe a lot to those who came back from conflict.
****
Be that all as it may. Thank you for serving, Dad, Louis and Kurt. My immediate family who has been through the gate.
