Armistic... err, Veterans Day is an ironic sort of Holiday

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The reason we have a holiday today instead of Monday is that Armistice Day is one of those holidays that cannot be separated from its date.

World War I ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month so it has to be November 11.

What is ironic about the holiday is that World War One was the war to end war and also America's big military step onto the world stage. We--a super enlightened country--were going to wade into the childish squabbles of Europe and straighten them out once and for all.

Yet this holiday which was supposed to celebrate the death of war has become an annual remembrance of the perpetuity of war. World War One turned out to be merely the opening act in a century that I am guessing saw more war dead than all of previous human history combined.

And The United States did not withdraw to our farms having ended war. We tried, entering a period of isolationism, but having made ourselves the global decider in balance of power struggles our subsequent abdication was destablizing. And then we had to arm-up more than ever. Since the end of World War One the United States has grown to be a full-time military nation, spending as much on our military than the defense budgets of the rest of the world combined.

In retrospect it seems that the US should probably not have gotten involved in World War One. We meant well, and if we had not become isolationist afterward things might have played out differently. I say we should have stayed out only because it is difficult to imagine how things would have turned out worse for Europe and Eurasia than they did. (Hitler, Stalin, 50 million dead etc.)

At some point it became clear that "Armistice Day" had become an ironic holiday and we changed it to veterans day, including all who served in the zillion conflicts that followed the war to end war.

But we already have MEMORIAL DAY... the real holy day to honor our war dead.

Armistice Day was a holiday to CELEBRATE the end of war. :party:

Ironic.

[Taverner]

1. My grandparents used to celebrate VE Day (May 8) every year

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. That makes good sense. It was a happy day.

[Warpy]

3. Since few are alive who remember that war

the holiday was changed to honor our veterans who have survived war, not been killed by it.

It's a good idea.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Hence the ceremonies at graveyards (?)