Remembering Armistice Day

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the big guns fell silent. It was the armistice of World War I in 1918. Who in my generation did not know the story? Who in this generation has heard it?

It was the great world war--the first time America had joined Europe’s wars overseas. We were saving the world for democracy. We were fighting the Kaiser and the Krauts. Our lads were dying in “no man’s land”--the battle line of trenches where huge cannons lined up opposite each other between Germany and France. That was the way wars were fought then. Our tanks were there. Our newly invented airplanes were dogfighting overhead. In a fervor of patriotism war bonds were sold, shortages and rationing were endured, women went to work so their men could go. How long? How long could it be?

Then the news came. There was no television, no radio. Telegraph and telephone and extras quickly spread the news. A truce had been declared and the big guns that never quit firing night and day ceased sounding. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month there was silence all along the front.

Jubilant celebrations broke out all over America. Bells. People danced in the streets of all the small towns as well as in Times Square. Parades were quickly formed and the Kaiser was burned in effigy. The celebration when peace came after World War II could not match the pure joy of that first cease-fire. There was no doubt. Our boys were coming home. The world had been saved. A holiday was set to remember this momentous day.

How did the holiday get changed to Veterans Day? We already had Memorial Day. Did people forget? Did the Second World War wipe out the memory of the first? Or was it that people didn’t want to remember the truce--a time to pause in the fighting to make peace.

Let’s remember. Let’s not let Nov. 11th be a confused, semi-holiday, a sort of imitation Memorial Day. Let’s sing the old songs--”There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding,” “Smile the While, I Kiss You Sad Adieu,” “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” “How Can You Keep Them Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree.” Let’s tell our children how it was. Let’s celebrate armistice.

LOIS VINCENT

Panorama City