“The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month…”
Ninety-one years ago today the echoes of the guns of August finally faded into silence. The parties of what at the time was known as “the war to end all wars” laid down their arms and began negotiating the peace. World War I had come to a close. (Of course, this didn’t mark an end to fighting – the Ottoman Empire disintegrated into civil war and wouldn’t reemerge as the Republic of Turkey for almost five years.)
Today we observe this date as Veteran’s Day, a national holiday to honor all of those who have lived and died in the service of the U.S. military. Given our current crisis, this observance is perhaps more important than ever. I think we may have exceeded Winston’s Churchill’s imagination of military sacrifice when he famously said, “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.” The burden of our military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan teeters dangerously on the less-than-Atlas-sized shoulders of our all-volunteer military. While this disproportionately small segment of U.S. society* fights our wars, the majority of us continue to rally around the cause of conflict with virtually no ownership. How many of us have family members in the military? In combat zones? What is our personal investment in these conflicts?
I fear that our disregard for the face of this holiday has allowed the deeper meaning of Veterans Day to remain obscured. Prior to becoming Veterans Day in 1954, this date was celebrated as Armistice Day, marking the cease fire that ended World War I. Buried within the deep of the Veterans Day tradition, there is not only an honoring of those who have served, but a remembrance of the terrible cost of war. A concurrent resolution passed by Congress in on June 4, 1926 reminds us of this price and encourages us to observe this date in the totality of its meaning (with thanks to the Veterans Administration, emphasis is mine):
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
To put it simply, Armistice Day was originally conceived as a day to celebrate the end of the fighting and to honor the cause of peace.
I fear we live in an age where much of the power of the original Armistice Day holiday has been lost; a power of which we are in dire need. We are politically dominated by the symbol of 9/11, a rallying cry to war uninhibited by any understanding of the deeper causes of resentment and hatred for our neo-imperial foreign policy. For those of us seeking to make a difference in our national life, it’s time to claim the symbol of 11/11: a call for peace grounded in the hope for a more cooperative community of nations, yet tempered in the sober reality of the destructive war whose end it commemorates.
Until we recognize that the cost of our callousness is truly greater than we can afford to bear, we will continue to live in fear instead of hope. Defining our orientation in terms of the devastating attack of September 11th only reinforces our national paranoia. Redefining our direction in terms of an admittedly uneasy armistice and peace could allow us to begin the process of international reconciliation that will truly be required to ensure not only our national security but international security as well. The time has come for those of who support the cause of peace to reject the fear of 9/11 and claim anew the hope of 11/11.
*Which also happens to be disproportionately overrepresented by African Americans and is rapidly rising in Latino/a representation – See Government Accounting Office Report GAO-05-952)
Cross posted at the Xenia Institute.
This article is a re-imagination of the article I originally published in my congregational newsletter, The Tahlequah Christian. You can read the original article here.
Related articles:
