Veterans Day

I don't know if other countries set aside a day to honor their veterans, but in my native USA, November 11th is Veterans Day. To everyone who served in his or her armed forces, no matter what your country, thank you for your service. It was also 32 years ago today when my father, a veteran of World war I, passed away. I plan to visit his grave later today.

You're welcome... A slow salute to your father.

We call it Remembrance Day. Most people observe a minutes silence at 11 AM to honour the fallen.

At 11.00 am on 11/11/1918 the antagonists of the first world war stopped killing each other. That's why we in the not-very-United Kingdom have it as Remembrance Day.

We continue to honour Remembrance Day, for past and present conflicts, to try and bring some comfort in knowing the fallen will never be forgotten. If only the world would learn from past mistakes and not repeat the harrowing loss of life!

Earlier in my life, we in the USA at work and school dropped everything, stood and faced the east for a moment of silence in honor of "armistice day". Not sure what all happened to that and where it all went but as a veteran myself, this is a good day for remembrance. I join in with Wheatwine and the others here in honoring our fallen heros as well as those serving in the past and present.

Agreed--all of the bloodletting of World War I was made meaningless by the inability or unwillingness of the Paris Peace Conference to institute a just, generous and lasting peace.

Hopefully, someday humanity will 'get it right' and those wartime losses (on all sides) will in the long run not have been in vain.

"With every mistake we must surely be learning." --George Harrison, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

--C.K.

If only I believed that.

Anyhow, today I put on my veteran's hat (I wear it about once each year) and took another, older, vet out to lunch. To all the vets I wasn't able to take to lunch, I salute you.

Thank you all.

I lost two uncles in the Great War. One of them lied about his age at a recruitment rally in South London in order to be enlisted. He died at the age of 17 in Ypres. My Grandmother received a telegram from the War Office containing that awful phrase, "missing believed killed" but could never come to terms with the fact that his body was never found. She even visited various hospitals approaching badly wounded soldiers with the words, "Hello Dick, it's mum" in the hope that one would respond. It must have been heartbreaking.

I thought of them at 11h00 yesterday.