Armistice Day

[greygirlbeast]

The Vonnegut quote I referred to was posted by grandmofhelsing and matociquala, and it was also nice to see an Armistice nod from nineweaving. Anyway, in case you've not read it, and wondered what I was on about, here's the quote:

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.

So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.

What else is sacred? Oh, "Romeo and Juliet," for instance.

And all music is.

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's an awesome quote - as well as a sentiment that I wholeheartedly agree with.

[kurtmulgrew.livejournal.com]

so they renamed it. It's pretty much the same. kind of.

[spiritualmonkey.livejournal.com]

Not quite. One holiday honors the soldiers. One holiday honors the moment when the soldiers stopped blowing each other to pieces.

An important difference, I think.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

The man was a poem. A poet, too. But also a poem.

[ulffriend.livejournal.com]

Not to disagree, but to propose and alternative view: I have many veterans in my family, most of them combat veterans. I suspect that if you asked them, they could (if they were so inclined...most of them are not, although in his last days my grandfather did tell me a little about D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge) tell you of moments when the voice of God spoke clearly in their service.

While I appreciate the momentus occasion to which Vonnegut refers, the men on the battlefields then were pretty much like the men and women on the battlefields now - frightened, angry, missing their loved ones, hoping they were doing something worthwhile. I'm not convinced that it is that much different now. The soldiers on the field don't make the decisions of when or where to fight, the old men in the offices do that. But the old men don't hear the voice of God.

I suspect that it is awareness of the meaning of the day that has failed rather than the value of the people who chose to put themselves in harms way, and what they sacrifice to do it.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

In the midst of all the noxious jingoist self-congratulation I hear today, it's good to take a moment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPFjToKuZQM) to put things in perspective.

[birgitriddle.livejournal.com]

This day will always be Armistice Day for me, even if I was born far after the name of it was changed in the USA.

[delirium23.livejournal.com]

I read that book in high school, and for almost 30 years I've remembered that quote every year on this day.

For 22 of those years, I've been a veteran. I still agree with Vonnegut. "Veterans' Day" is about as useful and sincere as a magnetic ribbon, especially since a certain airshow went down around the turn of the century.

If we wanted to honor veterans, especially dead, wounded and disabled veterans, we'd arrange to stop making more dead, wounded and disabled veterans instead of just thanking them for getting that way.

[mb2u]

There are times when Vonnegut is just a genius. And others when he's a fraking genius. This falls into the latter...