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“Armistice” – the temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement between opponents. A cessation of hostilities as a prelude to peace negotiations. Truce. From Latin words meaning “arms” and “to stand still.” 

Veterans Day wasn’t always Veterans Day, and it was originally as much about peace as it was about veterans. It was America sighing a big sigh of relief at the successful outcome of a horrendous endeavor.

In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11 the first Armistice Day, and it came about this way:

The War to End All Wars had ended. This “Great War For Civilization,” so named on the back of the US Victory Medal from that war because no sane person before the Second World War could imagine a second world war so they didn’t yet call the first world war the First World War, ended with an armistice between Germany and the Allies, signed at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 (OK, the parties actually signed it at 7 am but, like postdating a check, it didn’t become effective for another four hours because the whole 11/11/11 thing was too cool to pass up). This temporary cessation of hostilities had an expiration date of 30 days, but they agreed to renew it every month and it held until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the next year.

Too bad they didn’t stick with the renewable armistice: the conditions of the Versailles treaty were so punitive and onerous to the Germans that it became the first step leading to the next world war. In fact, Adolf Hitler forced the French to sign their own onerous peace treaty with Germany 22 years later in the same railroad car where the Versailles treaty signing occurred. It was a remarkable display of irony for the WWI vet, considering extremists of any stripe don’t tend to comprehend irony. Or maybe they just don’t get it when it’s about them.

In his proclamation, Wilson said, “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

The idea for Armistice Day was to take a two-minute break at work at 11 am on November 11 to reflect on the war, and maybe have a parade or some public speeches. Two years later, Wilson declared the Sunday nearest Armistice Day as Armistice Day Sunday, a day of prayers and services for international peace. Then a year after that, in 1921, Armistice Day began to evolve away from the whole peace thing when Congress declared Armistice Day a legal federal holiday to honor the veterans of the Great War, though it didn’t actually pass legislation making it official until 1938.

But, as you know, America has never really been at peace since the Great War, conducting an unbroken string military “actions” in Central America and elsewhere throughout the 1920s and ’30s, making the whole War to End All Wars thing a bit of an embarrassing conundrum. Then, of course, there came the Second World War and the Korean “police action,” creating a few million more veterans to honor on Armistice Day. In 1954 we completed our abandonment of the original concept of Armistice Day being about peace when President Eisenhower signed legislation renaming the day Veterans Day.

The final distortion came as an attempt to fully evolve the original two minutes off into another full blown three-day weekend for federal workers.

In 1968 Congress passed the Monday Holiday law that moved Veterans Day to the fourth Monday in October. Ironically, like the November 11, 1918 armistice, they postdated the law, which took effect in 1971. Forty-eight states initially obeyed the law (Mississippi and South Dakota declined to play along) but by 1975 46 states (not Arizona) had reverted back to observing Veterans Day on November 11. In that year Congress played along with everybody else and passed another postdated law to return the federal holiday to November 11, beginning in 1978.

Since Congress likes to fiddle with holidays, it would be no great stretch to return Armistice Day and its original concept: gratitude for veterans and the end of the War to End All Wars. This time, however, perhaps we could put some sincere effort on that “end all wars” part.

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