A Veterans’ Day primer

Veterans’ Day originally began as Armistice Day, intended to honor veterans, living and dead, of World War I. On November 11, 1918, at five in the morning, a treaty was signed between the Allies in Europe and Germany. The treaty was to take effect at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”—11 a.m. November 11, although it was breeched all that day and shooting stopped only when darkness fell. Over the next year, the treaty was violated several times, and peace did not reign until the Treaty of Versailles, negotiated in 1919.

My father fought in WWI (makes me seem awfully old) for the Canadian army. He survived mostly unscathed, though he was gassed and ever after was subject to bronchial difficulties. When jet planes first whined over our Chicago home (right in the path of Midway Airport), if he was outside, Dad would instinctively duck and head for the garage. To him, it was the sound of incoming. But he never talked about his war experiences.

During WWII, the name of the day was changed to Veterans’ Day to honor all who had served, living and dead, in all wars fought by this nation. When I was young, the world almost came to standstill at eleven in the morning, as people stopped in their tracks to stand and face east for one minute, in honor of the veterans. It is almost an unknown custom these days, but this morning at eleven I stood in the cottage and faced east for one minute.

Another custom once associated with the day is the wearing of red poppies, inspired by the poem written by John McCrae when he saw the blood-red poppies, in reality a weed, blooming on a ravaged battlefield. A French woman, Anne Guérin, is generally hailed as the originator of the poppy custom, although an American woman, Moina Michael, a volunteer for the New York YWCA, was simultaneously inspired by the poem and worked to promote fabric poppies. Europeans still wear the red poppy on Armistice Day but in America, the custom has become associated with Memorial Day, which more specifically honors those who lost their lives. Fabric poppies are sold to raise money for servicemen.

World War I inspired literature—especially poetry—that, little known today, is both intensely terrible and beautiful. It is not the literature of patriotism, but rather works that portray and capture the horror of battle. McCrae’s poem is probably one of the best known.

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

“. .. . the torch; be yours to hold it high”—words to remember and treasure in these trouble times in our country. On Veterans Day, let us honor and make proud the men and women who died to protect our freedom and our democracy.

Armistice Day and family moments

Flags are flying. In France they held a commemorative ceremony marking the centennial of the end of World War I. Having flown to France for the occasion, the occupant of the White House didn’t attend because of rain—I suppose he was worried about his hair, but Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s  Emmanuel Macron stood bare-headed in the rain, while Justin Trudeau talked of the day at Dieppe when it rained not rain but bullets. President Obama walked in the rain through a military cemetery with the graves of those lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I am confused.

In my mind, November 11 is Armistice Day. The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day. We all stand for one minute facing east. But that’s tomorrow. Has someone passed a law that we cannot mark Armistice Day on Sunday? Will the Rotary flag at my curb still be there tomorrow? I wish they’d quite messing with the dates of national days of celebration and memorial all for the sake of commercialism.

Nonetheless, our pretender-president has shown us again how fragile he is. Between dodging a few raindrops and attacking Jim Acosta, he’s not coming off as a man of self-confidence. General Bone Spurs rides again.

On a personal level, today held some of those family moments you take for granted at the time and later realize are to be treasured. Last night I asked Jacob if he would run some errands with me this morning. In return, I promised him a sausage and biscuit sandwich for breakfast. He dutifully appeared this morning, ate his breakfast, and we went on our way. I can do the pharmacy drive-in and the cleaners, where I would request curb service to turn in my metal hangers for recycling. But the post office to mail a package and the grocery are difficult me with the walker.

Slowly Jacob warmed to the task. By the grocery, he was whipping out my walker for me, and he carried it while I drove the motorized shopping cart. As he remarked, “You only hit one thing, Juju, and that wasn’t a hard hit.” I do wish stores would quit crowding their aisles with dumps. Somewhere in our travels, he said, “Last night when you asked me, I thought I didn’t want to do this. But it hasn’t been bad.” Be still my heart—from a twelve-year-old that’s as close as we can come to praise, but I told him it was called a left-handed compliment. He also said my car didn’t smell bad—he has for a long time said it smells of old leather, maybe because it’s an old car—and he did not say one word about my driving frightening him. I considered the whole outing a success.

This afternoon, the Burton family went to have their pictures taken for a Christmas card. For the first time I was asked to come along—they wanted me in some pictures. Flattering. As I told Christian, I even washed my hair. We took pictures at the shelter at the old site of Shakespeare in the Park—endless shots it seemed, and a long walk for me to and from the car. Then Christian walked me back to the car, where I sat and read while they did family pictures on the levee, with the downtown skyline as a backdrop. Then on to the duck pond where they did more pictures, and I read some more but watched with one eye.

All this photography involved lots of standing, often propping me against a wall or a post so the walker wouldn’t be in the picture—I did clutch Jordan a bit. And one wooden post had nails which caught at my sweater as I moved away. It was by then dusk and growing chilly. Jordan froze on the levee and at the deck pond, and even sitting in the car I was chilled. But it all had a nice family feel to it. I’m waiting for the pictures—hope I wasn’t squinting.

And so tonight I’m going to wrap a few Christmas presents. Don’t judge. I will see some of my family at Thanksgiving—only a week and a half away—and not again before Christmas, so I will have to deliver two families worth of modest gifts then.

Nope, it’s not too early to think about Christmas. As we walked through the super hardware store in our neighborhood shopping center, headed for the post office at the back, we passed all kinds of Christmas things, and Jacob said, “I can’t wait for Christmas.” If a twelve-year-old can admit that, so can I at eighty. Bring it!