Veterans' Day

Today is Veterans' Day. If you live in Canada, today is Remembrance Day. Last year I spent Remembrance Day in Canada. I think I like Remembrance Day better than Veterans' Day. This is not because I think veterans are unimportant. Quite the contrary. But I think Remembrance Day does a better job of things. It is a day to pause and remember the past wars and soldiers, as well as thinking about the current soldiers enduring conflict abroad. In Canada and England and possibly some other countries people wear poppies on their lapels in honor of Remembrance Day, to provide a visible symbol of their remembrance and support. This is a reference to this poem:

In Flanders Fields by Lt. Col. John McRae

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.

This is a poem written by a soldier in World War I. That war is the reason we have a holiday today. Originally November 11 was known as Armistice Day, because World War I ended on November 11, 1918. I learned this from the prologue to the book Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. Here is the excerpt from the book:

"When I was a boy...all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God."

So, in honor of the history of this day, let us pause for a moment and remember. Let us remember the sacrifice of our countrymen. And let us remember what that sacrifice costs us all.