Happy Armistice Day
Today used to be Armistice Day. It got changed in the 1950s after a veteran's group lobbied for the day to be set aside to honor all who have served their country. Right intention, wrong outcome. In my opinion, there should have been a separate day set aside for that lofty purpose. While we remain forever indebted to all who serve, there was something different about that day in 1918. Armistice Day should have remained a holiday to reflect on that one moment when the whole world took pause in gratification that the first global war had been brought. Whether such an instant truly occurred or has merely been idealized in the minds of the nostalgic, it remains nevertheless a monumental moment and a historic day.
For your reflection on this day, I offer the following excerpt from the introduction to Breakfast of Champions by Philboyd Studge, a.k.a. Kurt Vonnegut. I am particularly fond of his conclusion.
"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
"It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
"Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' day is not.
"So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
"What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
"And all music is."
For your reflection on this day, I offer the following excerpt from the introduction to Breakfast of Champions by Philboyd Studge, a.k.a. Kurt Vonnegut. I am particularly fond of his conclusion.
"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
"It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
"Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' day is not.
"So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
"What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
"And all music is."
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