Veterans Day

The guns of the Great War fell silent at 11AM local time, on November 11th, 1918, 116 years ago. The Armistice had been agreed to about six hours before it went into efect. About three thousand men died between the agreement to stop fighting and the cessation of hostilities. In a war marked by extreme callousness to the wastage of human life on both sides, those deaths may have been the most futile.

Armistice Day was first marked a year later. The Brits later renamed it Rememberance Day. It is still Armistice Day in France. For the Americans, Armistice Day became Veterans Day in 1954. For about eight years, in the 1970s, Veterans Day was jerked around to always be on the fourth Monday in October. But sanity finally prevailed and the day was restored to its intended day: November 11th.

America's last doughboy, Frank Buckles, who drove ambulances at the front, died in 2011.

This is the day to honor all those who have served in the Armed Forces.

If you have served, thank you. If a close family member served, thank you for supporting their service.

Please take a moment to remember those who have served.

And, if you wouldn't mind, please do not patronize an establishment that is running a "Veterans Day Sale". Fuck all of those assholes who seek to make a buck off the holiday.

And yes, I write these lines with a tinge of sadness. The voters of this country six days ago took a massive dump on the graves of all those men and women who have fought for freedom over the last 250-odd years, as well as those who fought against fascism eighty years ago. Our incoming president has derided those who fought and died for this country as suckers and losers and has used a previous Veterans Day's to rant on his personal grievances. I fear that we have traded our freedoms away for the promise of cheaper gasoline.

Our ancestors would be so proud of us.