One hundred years ago at the stroke of the eleventh hour on this, the eleventh day of the eleventh month, all the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Jubilation ensued on both sides of No Man’s Land as the front line soldiers emerged from their trenches to embrace a very welcomed peace. If only all those veterans could have left the war on the battlefield, what a much better quality of life their families would have had. All would carry with them the memories of sights and sounds and feelings they could never un-see, un-hear or un-feel. Many of them who were not permanently disabled by wounds received in combat would suffer sequalae from their injuries, both physical and psychological, for the rest of their lives. Many would bring home with them ultimately disabling coping mechanisms like alcoholism. Some of them were members of my own extended family. The experienced hardened many but few were not permanently changed in some profound way.
It matters not on which side a soldier may have fought, issues of confronting one’s personal mortality and dealing with perpetual traumatic loss rated high among the common misery of all front line combatants. Many accounts of the hell of trench warfare in France and Flanders were published after the cessation of hostilities and some stood out as an accurate picture of the horror of that awful reality. Erich Maria Remarque’s novel based on his experience in the German Army provides a moving foreword.
“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure for those who stand face to face with it. It will simply try to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.”
Regardless of the politics of how the United States became a combatant is the conflagration which, prior to 1939, was known as the Great War, the nation once again had to deal with former soldiers damaged by armed conflict. In 1930, via executive order, President Hoover established the Veterans Administration. It became the Department of Veteran Affairs and elevated to a Cabinet post in 1988 by President Reagan. Although VA medical treatment facilities may vary in size and services offered, they encompass all that cutting edge medicine and surgery can offer. There is no excuse for the suffering so many veterans have endured, the psychological suffering being as bad or worse in many cases than the physical. In the past decade, the incidence of veteran suicide has risen ominously. This is unacceptable and this is a trend that must be reversed. The late George Carlin once explained in detail why Americans have trouble dealing with reality and why he detests euphemisms beginning with a common malady afflicting many of those who fought in the trenches a hundred years ago and who are dealing with the same problem by any other name.
Military veterans, be they conscripts or volunteers, men or women, all wrote a blank check to the Republic to defend the Constitution of the United States by all means available up to and including their own life if necessary. President Truman articulated the sentiment extremely well.
Legislation designating November 11th as Armistice Day was passed in 1938 and in 1954 the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day to honor veterans of all wars. This Veterans Day is special for its 100 year commemoration of the First Armistice. The Great War was, after all, dubbed the War to end all Wars by President Wilson. Because of subsequent peace failures, it has also been attached to whatever conflict is being waged at whatever time. Sadly, it is because so many members of our own species have demonstrated less than valiant effort at making peace, it is still essential to prepare for war. It would behoove us as a people to make an effort to be a little more valiant in our effort to promote peace.
In the hundred years since the First Armistice the world or parts of it has convulsed and spasmed in armed conflict too many times to list. It has even stood at the brink of annihilation of the human race altogether with two nuclear arsenals targeting each other. Can human respect degenerate past fighting in trenches, jungles, deserts, or anywhere else aggression, actual or perceived, may raise its ugly head? If what we have seen in the past century is any indication as to where we are headed as species, the outlook certainly is not promising. For the here and now and for all those who volunteered to unconditionally serve a greater good and a cause way larger than themselves, my hat is off to you. Volunteering or being conscripted to serve in a war takes more than just courage, it takes a willingness to face a high risk of one’s own end. Volunteering to serve during peacetime is more of a crapshoot in that peacetime often is not very peaceful and you must accept that you have absolutely no control over world events that may directly impact you. For those who served though, and it seems to be a dwindling segment of the population, here’s to your sacrifice on this milestone day. May nobody ever forget!
The war had changed the world irrevocably, and these images depict just a small number of the people impacted. No matter their standing in society or role in the war, on Armistice Day they were all celebrating peace.