Today is Veteran's Day, but it began as Armistice Day. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the War to End All Wars ceased. In that last morning, when all knew peace to be at hand, commanding officers sent 6,000 more men to their graves, so that the officers could claim a few more feet of ground gained, just a little more victory for their wallets.
The War to End All Wars became the most brutal war fought for no good reason in a century of astonishing violence and destruction. Nationalism sparked the Great War, and Armistice Day permitted the Treaty of Versailles which set the stage for the German backlash that caused World War II. World War II ended with a divided, descimated Europe who still had not recovered from World War I, and new enemies squared off in a Cold War that turned hot in too many places. The Allied division of conquered territory and colonial strongholds artificially interfered with natural, cultural borders, and in the ensuing conflagrations in Africa and the Middle East, extremists were born and reared to hate the Other. The result of war for national pride? Death by the millions at Flanders Fields, Normandy, Hiroshima, Dunkirk and Dresden, Manchuria, Korea, Vietnam, Rwanda, Congo, Soweto, Afghanistan, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Auschwitz, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Argentina, Kashmir, Kosovo, Poland, Hungary, Kuwait, Romania, Bali, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Jordan and Iraq.
My father shed his blood in Vietnam. I am immensely proud of him and of his colleagues who gave their bodies, minds and lives when their nation called. They are brave and servant hearted. Theirs is true, the highest love, laying down their lives for those whom they love, who depend on them, whom they must defend and for those oppressed victims who surely deserve someone to fight for them. Yet, what an awful tragedy that so much nobility and love is wasted in war. What sin is on all our heads that we create the need for it.
I thank my father and his fellow veterans for their sacrifice, and I strive to honor them and our God as a part of the Kingdom that may make peace so that others do not have to tread their paths.
A poem by Stephen Crane:
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom --
A field where a thousand corpses lie. Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie. Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
