Armistice Day — an ironic holiday

[cthulu2016]

What we call Veterans today was originally Armistice Day, November 11 being the day World War I ended.

Since The Great War (they didn't know to call it World War One yet) was the "war to end war" it made sense to commemorate the date and hour when war itself was finally defeated. (11:11 AM on 11/11)

But the war to end war did not, in fact, end war. In fact, the USA would spend 65-70 of the 95 years between 1918 and today on a war footing, with a war economy, and eventually spending more on the military than all the countries we had even been at war with combined.

So a commemoration of the end of all war was "re-purposed" as Veterans Day, which is now an open-ended holiday to celebrate Americans who had served in any one of our many wars—wars too numerous designate individually. (Only so many days in a year.)

[riverwalker]

1. the poppies blow

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.



Why poppies in remembrance of war dead? The poppy seeds lie dormant in the soil, until they are disturbed, as in fields of battle. This is what happened in parts of the front lines in Belgium and France. Once the ground was disturbed by the fighting, the poppy seeds lying in the ground began to germinate and grow during the warm weather in the spring and summer months of 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918

[Raine]

2. it used to be required to memorize that poem in school. My mother said she

learned it when she was a little girl.