Honoring Veteran's Day

I wrote this piece for Veteran's Day last year (2012), and figured I would repost it. I wrote a little about the end of World War I in "On This Day in History" for November 11th, and wrote a separate piece honoring Kurt Vonnegut. This actually touches on both, although it seems to go into more detail specifically about World War I.

When I posted this last year, more or less life was returning to normal for many people after Hurricane Sandy had interrupted the regular flow of life in this region. Power was either restored or about to be restored to my parents, and my son already had power. My girlfriend and I were extremely lucky not to even have lost power, let alone to affected even more greatly, as so many people were, as a result of the storm.

In any case, here is the piece from last year on Veteran's Day:



On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918, World War I ended when Germany signed an armistice, effectively ending the war. Often still referred to as "The Great War", France, Britain, Russia, and Germany all celebrated on the day that war broke out. All expected an easy and quick victory, and the war was thought to be an opportunity for men to prove their courage, their valor, their worth.

Instead, it became a stalemate, as both sides were reduced to digging their heels in trenches, with a "No Man's Land" separating the fighting forces. Incompetent generals would send thousands to their deaths in order to small parcels of land. Millions of people died, and many, many more were wounded. With the improved technology, some lives were saved from injuries that would have ended lives beforehand. But when they returned back home, they often could not rejoin what had been normal society, and the people back home got to see the effects of the excesses of the war.

Far from being a quick and easy triumph for any nation, the war dragged on and on and on, draining the resources and wills and the wallets of the nations participating. People began to have a different understanding of war. So much was this the case that, when Hitler started World War II, expecting the German people to celebrate the start of the war as they had back in 1914, he was dismayed to find that no one was celebrating.

War is, of course, not a joke. It means death, suffering, confusion. It also means excesses like rape and murder. Nowadays, it also means bombs and missiles and air strikes, more often than not.  For those with the misfortune of having to see war up close and personal, it transforms their lives, and usually, for the worst.

Those who fight wars have seen the worst that humanity has to offer. The rest of us may think that we see it in glossy history books or multimillion dollar blockbuster movies, but those who fight, and put their life and health at risk, who get attacked and have to literally fight to save their lives, have been there, and know war more intimately. They often join the war effort with a measure of idealism, and too often come out of it disillusioned. There is much death, and much suffering. That is an inevitable consequence of the chaos unleashed by war.

Let us remember the sacrifice of those veterans who have been through so much - far more than we will ever know, because they have had to live it, and often with the consequences, every minute of their lives. Some lose their lives on the battlefield, still many more come back home, but never the same. It is not enough to slap a bumper sticker on our SUV's to show we support our troops. They need our support now, once the war is finally over, more than ever. Let us welcome them home, and help them to adapt in any way that we can.

I did not agree with some of the recent wars - particularly in Iraq. I cannot lie about that. But these are men, these are fellow human beings, and we should welcome them home, and help them to get through whatever ordeals they have to deal with now. We need to understand what happened, so that we can be more knowledgeable, and perhaps prevent it from happening again in the future.

Today, I write in recognition of veterans, what they have done, and what they have been through.

Here in the United States, we recognized Veteran's Day on Monday. it is a holiday, but since it fell on a weekend, it was recognized on this Monday. I would like to thank many veterans that I have known, some of whom are the most decent and thoughtful people that I know, period. I hope that they receive the warmth that they so richly deserve.

On a slightly lighter note, yet in keeping with the spirit of Veteran's Day, November 11th also was the birthday of the late Kurt Vonnegut (one of my favorite authors), who also was a veteran. He served during World War II in Europe, and was captured by the Germans early in 1945. Taken to Dresden as a POW, he wrote of the city as a wonder almost as if it looked like the living embodiment of a fairy tale. He was there when the city was destroyed overnight by the Allied firebombing, in what became the single biggest overnight massacre in history. There is still some uncertainty about the numbers of people killed, although Vonnegut suggests that it was well over 100,000. The city was completely destroyed,. Prior to the firebombing (which came less than three months before Germany surrendered), Dresden had been one of the very few cities considered an "open city" meaning that it had no military value. Thus, it had escaped bombing, up until that night. The experience of being there for that had a huge impact on Vonnegut, and his traditionally anti-war stance was a major theme in his writing. He wrote with eloquence, yet with a strong measure of humor, about this, and many other subjects. He is missed.