Thank a Veteran

Today Is Veterans' Day. Or, as my Grandparents originally knew it, Armistice Day.

Why Armistice, to honor the service of our veterans? World War One was the first major European War in a century. With no real memory of the true horrors of war, Europe quickly sank to the horrors of trench warfare, stagnant in military, social, and health terms.

The "War to End all Wars" did not achieve that goal. But the end of WW I by armistice, at 11 am European Time on 11-Nov-1918 ended the horrors of  the trenches, and a generation observed that hopeful event as Armistice Day.

The aftermath of a vindictive peace from Versailles destroyed a generation in Western Europe as the dystopian phoenix of Fascism and Nazism rose in the ashes of defeat and caused World War Two. The social collapse in eastern Europe which ended the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish Empires also led to the horrors of Communism, which suppressed the hopes and lives of hundreds of millions for most of 20th Century.

So thank a Veteran today for their faithful service to our nation, and damn the politicians who undermined the work of our Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen / Airwomen, and Marines after 1918, and appear hellbent on the same today as they cut budgets on the backs of services to rehabilitate wounded warriors, and destroy the peace by failure to decide on the goals for our new wars..