Remembering the 11th

Today is Veteran's Day.

I'm grateful to those who served. To those who were willing to (and in some cases, did) die in the defense of the U.S. or of her allies.

Today is also known - and I knew it better as a kid as - Armistice Day (and Memorial Day was known as Decoration Day). The eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month - we were taught that in school and it's always stuck with me. This is the memorial of the end of Western Front hostilities in World War I.

I guess we haven't any WWI veterans left. When I was a kid, they were still around - mostly people's grandfathers and older uncles, old men already at that time. (One of my grandfathers served - he never saw actual action; he was an experimental pilot in the early version of the Army Air Corps and I guess he was mainly involved with testing planes in Texas. One of my great-uncles also served, but I never met him - he died before I was born. My mother says his lungs were always weak after the war (he was gassed) and I guess pneumonia carried him off one winter.)

I remember as a child, going to the grocery store with my mom on this day (I think school was out), and her dropping some money in the VFW member's can and getting the little paper poppies to pin to our coats. I remember my grandmother had a number of paper poppies from past years pinned on one of those old calendars printed on a linen towel. (I suspect it would have been even more meaningful to her, having had a brother who fought, and probably having known many of the young men from her town who went to fight). I don't know if the poppies are still around or not, if that sort of thing is still done here.

(A rather nice exploration of the symbolism of the poppies, and their history, with photos, is at this Vivaboo site)

I'm always a bit taken aback how few of the current crop of college students (at least, the "traditional" ones) know the origin of this day. I've even adjudicated arguments over whether this was Memorial Day or Veteran's Day.

(And I find myself, at least in my mind, sadly repeating old Professor Kirke's line from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: "What DO they teach them in these schools, these days?")

I don't know. I guess as somewhat of a traditionalist, I think remembering days like this - the why, the how, the history - is important. Even if the people for whom it was originally established are all gone. (And the WWII veterans are fast leaving us.)

(It would have been nicely symbolic if I could have finished "The Guns of August" last night, but that didn't happen. I will say I have to read it in small doses; it seems World War I was a particularly brutal war (well, all wars are brutal) for the fighting men. It seems - I may have said this before - that it was a war fought using 20th century technology but a 19th century mindset, and I think that's probably the source of a lot of the slaughter of the ordinary fighting men. The aristocrats who led the armies were interested in dashing around on their horses and cutting a good figure, and seemed not as mindful of the men being mowed down by the then-new 75 mm guns or other new artillery...)

At any rate: I could probably not have served in the military myself (several of the health issues I've had over the years - and had, even at 18 - would have kept me out. And even as recently as the 80s, I don't think the military was seen as much as a career for women as it was for men). But I'm certainly grateful to those who did serve.