Veterans Day / Armistice Day - November 11 - history

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11
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TODAY is VETERAN’S DAY. Remember all those who have served in uniform. You may want to take a moment and listen to three songs:
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“Veteran’s Day” – we recommend TOM RUSSELL’s particularly moving recording. JOHNNY CASH recorded it, too.
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And,
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“Hey Beautiful” – the original song by ELANA JAMES from HOT CLUB OF COWTOWN, taken from the last letter home from U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Juan Campos (1979-2007), a soldier in Iraq. It’s really, really moving, very, very well written (both as a letter and a song) and a perfect performance. Listen free on the band’s myspace page, and be prepared not to be able to do anything else for a few minutes after you hear it - www.myspace.com/hotclubofcowtown
It’s also on their website (where there’s a free download of 2/3 of it) and more about the story behind it, at www.hotclubofcowtown.com
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And,
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ERIC SCHWARTZ singing his original, "Welcome Back to the USA." on YouTube, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRCbMc4YPzk
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In addition, we recommend reading the letter written by Maj. Sullivan Ballew, available on the site established for the epic TV documentary by Ken Burns, “The Civil War.” Get there through the PBS website. The letter is as timeless as anything ever written by a human being in love, in any time or place.
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Today marks the 92nd anniversary of the original VETERAN’S DAY – as it was first observed – as “ARMISTICE DAY,” a commemoration of the coming of peace at the end of World War I (1914-1918). That war was so bloody and shocking that it was deemed “The Great War,” and “The War to End All Wars” – until, that is, Imperial Japan began to conquer large parts of Asia that belonged to other people, and Nazi Germany invaded Poland in collusion with Stalinist Russia, starting what would be a far bloodier Second World War.
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Armistice Day in America honored the hard-won peace and the veterans of The Great War, the war that ended with a peace treaty – the armistice – that took effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the moment when the booming artillery barrages suddenly ended, and troops from opposing sides walked from their trenches across the cratered “no-man’s-land” to greet each other and celebrate their common survival.
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You can read an interview done in 2008 with the last surviving veteran of WW I, Henry Allingham, who was then 112 years old. He was an aviator with the British Royal Flying Corps, predecessor of the RAF. It’s fascinating what he saw seen, and what he remembered after so many years and at such an advanced age. It’s at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27646518/?GT1=43001
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The last living American-born veteran was Frank Woodruff Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia, who was 107 years old at his last observance of Veterans Day in 2008.
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Even as the veterans of The Armistice fade away, the significance of November 11 remains today. Even as the last veterans of World War I have left us, and only about 8% of the veterans of “The Greatest Generation” that won World War II still live, America continues to produce veterans of wars. Sadly, they are wars fought for oil, but they nonetheless elicit bravery and sacrifice from members of the US armed services.
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Hence, a day first proclaimed as a national holiday by President Woodrow Wilson as Armistice Day, has perpetually present relevance in America as the date that honors all veterans of US military service, as Veterans Day.
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Entire contents copyright (c) © 2010, Larry Wines. All rights reserved.
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