Today is Veteran’s Day. November 11th. I am a
veteran; as is my father, and some few of my friends.
From the end of World War I, until 1954, we celebrated this
day as Armistice Day, as a remembrance of the moment in that first great-global
conflict; when the fighting stopped along the lines, stopped suddenly, stopped all
at once, at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month; as
if the director of the war yelled “cut!” And all the actors on the stage, the pawns
in their trenches, the people lying in their graves got up from what they were
doing and went home.
That is not what happened. Sixteen million people were
killed in World War I, sixteen million families broken, and many millions more suffering
in the aftermath. It was perceived by those who endured it as so horrible that it was sure to be the
war to end all wars, but that would not be the case.
The gods of war are busy. The conflicts they sew never ends.
Today is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours. He is the
patron saint of soldiers; St. Martin of the Sword. He was the first Christian
Soldier. It was in recognition of him, and his feast that this date was selected,
to bring a halt to World War I.
Pope, Saint Gregory the Great, who gave us our calendar,
penned his hagiography. Though it is not likely that Martin ever even lived.
The hagiography was a fiction, our celebration of Saint Martin, just a lie. It
was a fable with a purpose, through it Pope Gregory gave permission to
Christians to takes up arms. He gave Christian soldiers leave to march to war.
The spirits of conflict have a will of their own…their will
is our own.
In 1954, President Eisenhower, who had been the Supreme
Allied Commander in World War II, he changed the nature of the November 11th
Holiday. He changed it from Armistice Day, to Veteran’s Day, in honor of all
Veterans who had fought in any conflict, anywhere in the world.
That is what we celebrate today.
We do not celebrate the end of war, because war’s never end.
We do not celebrate the fictional life of a fictional saint, whose usefulness
as a propaganda tool suggested that it was possible to serve Jesus, with a
sword, and that peace is the fruit of violence. We celebrate the character of
those who have had the courage to enlist, to risk their lives for the lives of
their sisters and brothers, whether at home or beside them in the field.
The spirits of conflict have a will of their own…the
children of Aries; Fear, Panic, Strife, they own us. We are possessed.
We are still waging war all around the world, we the United
States of America are waging war; in Iraq, in Afghanistan, arming rebels in
Syria, selling weapons, and feeding other conflicts in every sector of the
globe.
I served in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, from 1990 –
1994.
I did not serve in that theatre where we killed 300,000
Iraqis in the space of a few months.
My father served for twenty-two years; the first four as a
Marine, and then eighteen in the Air Force. Our nation went to war only once
during that time, in Vietnam, where my father served multiple tours of duty, we
killed 3,000,000 Vietnamese.
We have killed millions more in many other nations in the
decades since.
Millions of families broken.
We are terrible, we are profligate killers of our fellow
human beings. Every bullet we fire, every missile we launch, each of them is an
admission of our failure as diplomats.
Violence does not beget peace, it begets violence. Peace and
reconciliation bring Peace.
Love one another; pay respect to the inherent dignity of
every human being, regardless of your disagreements, regardless of the pain you
are carrying from your past. Commit yourself to meet conflict with love, and
respect, this is the thanks you can give to a Veteran today.
