| Tuesday, November 11, 2008 |
| Europe's altogether different day |
This day has a different significance across the pond, where the "war to end all wars" took place just outside the door:
For Americans, Veterans Day celebrates the survivors of all the nation’s 20th and 21st century wars. In France and Britain, by contrast, the mood is altogether more somber. In these countries, it is the dead who, since 1919, have been the focus of the ceremonies. Why this difference? After all, for citizens of all three countries the date marks a shared victory. In the jargon of the time, Nov. 11, 1918, was the day of their soldiers’ triumph over “Prussian militarism,” the vindication of a “fight for civilization” and the successful finish of a “war to end all wars.” In the years after the war, official ceremonies in the United States reflected these victorious ideals and celebrated “world peace” — it was only after World War II that the day was dedicated specifically to veterans. The touchstone of loss and suffering for Americans remained the Civil War, the world’s first industrial conflict, which 50 years before World War I had taken the lives of more than 600,000 soldiers. Memorial Day (or as it was originally known, Decoration Day) was first instituted in May during the late 1860s to commemorate these fallen. In contrast, it was only in August 1914 that the horrors and shock of modern warfare came to Europe. The Great War, as the conflict is still known in France and Britain, was a prolonged and vicious struggle demanding the commitment of nations’ wealth and manpower on an unprecedented scale. Over four years, armies millions of men strong clashed indecisively in horrendous conditions. For the first time on this scale, genuine home fronts formed, as civilians were targets of bombings and food blockades. British war losses, at more than 700,000 men, remain the heaviest in the country’s history. French and German dead were even more numerous, totaling 1.4 million and likely 2 million, respectively. It was the need to come to terms with this immense loss of life that shaped European commemorations of Nov. 11. On the armistice’s first anniversary in Britain, a two-minute silence was observed at 11 a.m., the time the fighting ended; industry was shut down, traffic halted and people across the country fell quiet to remember the nation’s dead. In France, public grief was expressed more loudly, local communities gathering every armistice day to hear the names of the dead read out by a war orphan, and responding in unison, “mort pour la patrie” — “died for his country.”
Read the whole thing here:
Labels: Armistice Day, November 11, Veterans Day |
posted by JReid @ 11:14 AM   |
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| Happy Veterans Day! |
 To all our fighting men and women, who've served in wars present and past, in combat and not ... thank you for your service and heroism, and my God bless you and your families.
Whether or not you agree with the Iraq war, and I believe it should not have been waged, there is no disagreement that our armed forces are populated by heroes, whose bravery is unchecked by danger, or by politics. They are the best of what this country has, and we should honor them, not just today, but every day.
 U.S. Army soldiers conducting a joint patrol with Iraqi Army soldiers in a predominantly Sunni neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, Iraq, March 23, 2007. David Furst—AFP/Getty Images
They continue to believe, even after giving more than they should have been required to, and they continue to fight, even after the suits have lost the war, not because they don't know any better, but because they do it for each other.
 There's a certain romantacism that develops in the civilian population about war, when in fact, war is brutal, and ugly, and disastrous, for the population living with it, and for the troops who fight it. The troops don't have the luxury of romanticism.
 As for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are on so many minds today, it is clear that in ways large and small, their leaders, and their country, have failed the military men and women of this country -- by not providing proper equipment, by giving them inadequate medical and other assistance when they come home (not to mention by sending them on a questionable mission in Iraq.) Those are some of the deficits that must be fixed over the next few years. And while we cannot change the past, the least we can do is not fail to give them a little bit of gratitude, and respect.
So happy Veterans Day, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. Our thanks.
Labels: Iraq war, veterans, Veterans Day |
| posted by JReid @ 10:22 AM |
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