Keuka College opinions & editorials

It’s Still Armistice Day for the 14 Veterans of World War I

by Sander Diamond, professor of history, Keuka College

Published Nov 22, 2006

KEUKA PARK, N.Y.—What used to be called Armistice Day came and went this year with little fanfare, just four days after a mid-term election that altered the political landscape amid calls to bring our troops home from Iraq. Buried in an avalanche of news was one of those historical nuggets that gives us pause and re-affirms the fleeting nature of life. 

In 1917, a reluctant America entered World War I. One year later, Germany signed an Armistice Nov. 11 and hostilities came to an end at 11 minutes after the 11th hour that morning.

In all, 4,355,000 young men were called up and 116,516 never came home. Another 204,022 were wounded, many pale shadows of their former selves suffering from “shell shock” and disfiguring wounds. Recently, the government reported that only 14 remain, the youngest 105 years old. Soon we will be down to the last man and history will record his name as we move closer and closer to the 100^th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I with the roars of the guns of August in 1914.

When the war ended, the soldiers convinced themselves that they had realized President Wilson’s vision of a “war to end all wars” and a better world “made safe for democracy.”  Their deeds were memorialized in the creation of Armistice Day and the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C. Sadly, 21 years later, Germany attacked Poland and another world war started. Out of the trenches of France, Hitler emerged to reverse the verdict of Armistice Day and his evil deeds still haunt us. In the words of one writer, he left “a hole in the heart of the world.”

Many of the veterans of The Great War who served us so well had to do so again to stop the lowly German runner in the trenches who morphed into Der Führer.  Generals and admirals, such as Patton (1885-1945), Halsey (1882-1959), Eisenhower (1890-1969), Bradley (1893-1981), and MacArthur (1880-1964) began their long careers in the first conflict and ended them in the Cold War.

Sixty-one years after the end of World War II, roughly four million of the 16 million who served are still alive and any talk of the last man will have to wait for decades. Given the remarkable advances in the extension of life, it is possible that soldiers who were 18 years old in 1945 may still be alive to commemorate the German and Japanese unconditional surrender in 2045 when the Census Bureau projects there will be more than one million Americans over the age of 100.

But death never takes a holiday and they are dying at the rate of 1,800 a day. Many chose to be buried in military cemeteries and each year the government creates new ones in open spaces far from our expanding urban areas. Last August, my father-in-law died at age 90. He was a veteran of Normandy, The Bulge and the battle for the last bridge still standing to get our troops over the Rhine at Remagen. When the hearse arrived at the cemetery on the tip of Long Island, we had to wait more than an hour. We were 11th in line. Day after day, from 8 a.m. to late in the afternoon, the hearses arrive with coffins carrying the remains of “The Greatest Generation” as well as veterans of the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. When we saw him for the last time before the casket was closed, it was hard to imagine him as a young man in a drab GI uniform, rifle in hand landing on the beaches of France to start the liberation of Europe.

In 1914, America was isolated and protected by its oceans. But when the war ended, we became involved in a century of total war—World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and our current involvement in Iraq—so many conflicts that Armistice Day became Veterans Day in memory of all who served. However, for the14 survivors of our first major foreign war, it is still called Armistice Day and with good reason. It was just that, a cessation of hostilities until the next round from 1939-1945.

We can only hope that our first war of the 21^st century is not another prologue to a series of chain wars.

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