Armistice Day

"Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not."
—Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Breakfast of Champions

In these United States, we commemorate 11 November as Veterans Day, a day of thanksgiving for all those who have served in our armed forces, stood on a wall in defense of our freedom, & survived. This is not the day to honor the glorious dead—that's Memorial Day. This is not the day to honor those guarding us on active duty—that's Armed Forces Day. Alas, in latter days there has been a great confusion & all of the days those days have become conglomerated. The Lord knows I do not mean to dishonor our veterans with my preference for Armistice Day over Veterans Day. I believe the focus & clarity of Armistice Day/Remembrance Day is vital. Those who died from 1914-1918 did not die in vain so long as we remember for what they died, so long as we strive with all our strength to avoid the madness of lust for territorial conquest & nationalism run amok.

Ninety-seven years ago to the day, 11 November 1918—at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—the guns fell silent on the Western Front, signaling the end of the Great War, the Weltkrieg ("world war"). Only later, after war began anew in 1939 would the war of 1914-1918 be renamed the First World War. Millions lay dead in the heart of Western civilization; millions more were scarred, physically, mentally, emotionally, & spiritually. Words fail me, so allow me to quote myself, from one year hence:

"I am living with the Great War as never before, commemorating its centenaries through "The Explorers' Club." I am fatigued. Yet I dare not fail to remember them, those lads—brave & craven, idealistic & fatalistic, German & French & Russian & loyal to empires proud & strong that disintegrated before their bodies were cold in their graves—who died not in vain in 1914-1918. A century on we in the West have embraced a myth, have ensconced ourselves in a nihilistic fiction that it all meant nothing, that 'twas all folly & no nobility. But the men who fought, those who lived to see peace & careers & families & the greater war that followed, they knew for what they had fought, for what their friends had died. I dare not flag, dare not fail to keep faith with our fathers. They were not golden, brilliant men of a golden, brilliant age. They were as human as you or I. They made mistakes & they pulled of incredible coups; they were generous & they were petty. They did not operate with our smug, fatally flawed assurance that hindsight has made us wise. We dare not forget them because they were the same as we are now, because their fate can be ours unless hindsight leads to wisdom, unless we learn from their mistakes just as our posterity must learn from ours. I am weary, but remain devoted & undaunted."

Around the world, the Armistice that ended the "war to end all wars" will be remembered in the playing of the "Last Post": B.B.C.-link.

"The Fallen Subaltern"
by Herbert Asquith* (1881-1947)

The starshells float above, the bayonets glisten;
We bear our fallen friend without a sound;
Below the waiting legions lie and listen
To us, who march upon their burial ground.

Wound in the flag of England here, we lay him;
The guns will flash and thunder o'er the grave;
What other winding sheet should now array him,
What other music should salute the brave?

As goes the Sun-god in his glorious chariot,
When all his golden banners are unfurled,
So goes the soldier, fallen but victorious,
And leaves behind a twilight in the world.

And those who come this way, in days hereafter,
Will know that here a boy for England fell,
Who looked at danger with the eyes of laughter,
And on the charge his days were ended well.

One last salute; the bayonets clash and glisten;
With arms reversed we go without a sound:
One more has joined the men who lie and listen
To us, who march upon their burial ground.

"Valley of the Shadow"
by John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

God, I am traveling out to death's sea,
I, who exulted in sunshine and laughter,
Thought not of dying death—is such waste of me!
Grant me one comfort: Leave not the hereafter
Of mankind to war, as though I had died not—
I, who in battle, my comrade's arm linking,
Shouted and sang—life in my pulses hot
Throbbing and dancing! Let not my sinking
In dark be for naught, my death a vain thing!
God, let me know it the end of man's fever!
Make my last breath a bugle call, carrying
Peace o'er the valleys and cold hills, for ever!

*Herbert Asquith of the Royal Artillery, not to be confused with his father, the wartime prime minister Herbert Henry "H. H." Asquith (1852-1928), the first Earl of Oxford & Asquith.

Wayback Machine: Lest We Forget
I do not end every Great War-themed episode of "The Explorers' Club" with the words "Lest we forget" because they are from the great Rudyard Kipling, nor even because they are pretty & evocative. No, I repeat them because I live in mortal dread. Lest we forget, lest we fall victim to the same hubris, the same folly, the same tragedy. Lest we fail to learn the lessons of history. This is the most important work, the only important work of The Secret Base, the war against forgetting, the war to keep alight the flame of memory. I take great satisfaction that never has this most sacred day past unobserved, not from the earliest, chaotic days of this blog. Lest we forget.

Armistice Day '14 | Armistice Day '13

Armistice Day '12 | Armistice Day '11

Armistice Day '10 | Armistice Day '09

Armistice Day '08 | Armistice Day '07

Armistice Day '06 | Armistice Day '05

Armistice Day '04 | Armistice Day '03

Armistice Day '02

The Rebel Black Dot Song of Armistice Day
Siegried Sassoon, "Counter-Attack" from The Pity of War: Songs and Poems of Wartime Suffering (The Last Angry Man)

Commentary: The great frustration of The Pity of War is that nowhere in the liner notes is listed the name of the chap who reads the poems. Siegfried Sassoon, M.C. (1886-1967) deserves credit for writing "Counter-Attack," but the other fellow also deserves credit for voicing the words so affectingly. Alas!