20131111.0630

Today in the United States, it is Veterans Day,* upon which I have commented once or twice before.  In many other places, it is Armistice Day, a commemoration of the end of the First World War.  It is lamentable that those many who called World War I "the war to end all wars" were wrong; it is sad that the optimism in 1919 was in vain.  But it is still fitting that they who fought in that conflict are remembered; we may need remediation to learn the lesson they sought to teach, but that does not mean that we cannot learn it.

If we ignore it, though, we will not be able to learn it, and the Great War is too often ignored in favor of other conflicts.  In some senses, this is understandable.  WWII was far more horrific than its predecessor, killing far more and changing the world perhaps more drastically; that it is widely studied is appropriate.  Too, it remains in living memory, if by a decreasing margin, and WWI barely does if at all, anymore.  The conflict in Korea is in some senses still going on; the US still has forces arrayed along the border between North and South Korea, after all.  Vietnam was...what it was, and I honestly do not know enough to comment upon it.  Other, more recent actions have been more thoroughly and publicly documented, and I need not remark too much upon them; they have received more attention than I can provide.

There was much of note in WWI, however.  General of the Armies of the United States Pershing was hardly without a storied history.  Similarly Colonel Alvin York (whose commission was a later matter, but still entitles him to the style).  Yet even such people, who were lauded so highly and who exerted such influence on later generations, are overlooked; even I, who am aware that there is more to see, can recall few other than them, to my shame.  It is something which I will be working to remedy (among the many other things I seek to fix in myself and the world around me).

It is something towards which we all ought to be working.  If it is the case that such days as today exist to remember those who have fought and died on our behalf, then it is the case that they all ought to be remembered--or as many of them as can be.  This is true even for those who fought a fight whose purposes were not wholly met--and, again, sadly, the First World War neither ended all war nor even ended it among the nations and peoples of Europe.  They deserve to be honored no less than their successors--and perhaps we honor them best by working to enact their hope.

And to those who have so struggled, particularly those who have done so in uniform, I offer my thanks.

*English major bit (because I cannot help but): there is confusion about the genitive.  I have seen "Veterans Day," as I give above, from the US Department of Veterans Affairs--and that agency has substantial authority in the matter.  I have also seen "Veteran's Day," and have used it.  As I think on it, "Veterans' Day" seems most "correct," as the day is one in honor of more than one veteran.  The agency should then be Veterans' Affairs, and, as it was set up in a time when people were more...punctilious about "correct" usage, I am confused at what strikes me as an error.