Armistice/Veterans Day
Some Fuzzy Logic By Will Dugan
November 10, 2004
November 11, 2004. It is an American National holiday. We call it Veterans Day. We are supposed to honor
the men and women who are veterans. I am a veteran, but have seldom felt honored on this day. If I feel
anything at all, it is sorrow for the soldiers who have died in battle and concern for the young men and
women who face that possibility to this very day. My heart sheds a tear and my soul cries a prayer.
November 11, 1918. It is the anniversary of the Armistice, which was signed in a forest by the Allies and
the Germans, ending World War I after four years of conflict. An armistice is the effective end of a war,
when the warring parties agree to stop fighting.
It wasn't until 1938 that the U.S. Congress got around to making this day an "official" holiday. And in
1954, an act of Congress changed the name of this national observance to Veterans Day.
If there is a cause for celebration on this day, I hope that it is a declaration of a desire for peace. I
think that was a big part of the origins of this day of remembrance.
My memory, being somewhat blurred by my life, seems to recall something about the 11th hour of the 11th
day of the 11th month. And what I remember is this: All of the soldiers in a certain area of Europe were
to cease-fire at a precise moment. This moment came after 4 years of warring hostilities. I have read that
"The Great War" or the "War To End All Wars" or "World War I" (it seems to have been given different names
at different times by different people) was horribly barbaric - it involved a combination of some modern
machines of war and strategies that failed to fully realize the effects of these machines on the human
body and spirit. And after 4 years of this devastating warfare, men were more than eager to call it quits.
And it has been said, in that moment - when all hostilities ceased, when all of the soldiers laid down
their arms, when both sides quieted their weapons of war - that the Voice of God spoke through the silence.
I get some kind of spiritual chill thinking about it. I imagine myself in that "theater of war". I am
hunkered down in some trench that represents a few yards of blood-spilt, hard-won territory. There are
dead comrades on either side; limbs ripped from their torn bodies and their guts are not pretty. Mortars
have been whistling and exploding. Bullets have been narrowly missing me all too often. I am an emotional
and physical wreck because I have witnessed the deaths of so many good friends. The moment arrives, a
whistle is blown, a command is given - we all stop shooting. God speaks through the silence. And I know
exactly what He says. "Thank you. Bless you for stopping."
I wonder if there is anyone alive today that was there; anyone who still remembers the Voice of God on
that day in that moment. Well let's see, an 18-year-old man at that time would have been born in 1900, and
that would make him 104 years old today. I suppose that it is possible - in some nursing home somewhere,
addled by over a century of life's wear and tear on the body and the mind - is a decrepit old man who
cannot remember his children's names, or even his own.
But I suspect that the Voice of God is not easily forgotten. It is quite possible that this ancient
warrior, if he indeed does exist, remembers quite well the Voice of God as it spoke on that long-ago day.
There is some eternal, internal, infernal reminder alarm compelling our un-honored hero to speak of God's
message on that day. And he musters the coherency to relate the sermon as best he can, "I remember ...".
"Shut up, you old fart" is a likely retort.
Ah, Veterans Day.
Copyright © 2009 By Will Dugan
