The eleventh day, the eleventh month, the eleventh hour

 

I write this on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour of 2020.  102 years ago, at this very moment, World War I ended.

When I was in high school, the Civil War was a hundred years before. It seems odd that that's true now of a war in which my own father and Uncle Johnny fought. A while ago, a nurse I know recommended the movie They Shall Not Grow Old, a remarkable piece of film in which movies of soldiers in the trenches were supplied with soundtracks, lip-readers transcribing what was being said, and voice actors with the regional accidents of the speakers, where these could be determined, voicing their words.

I knew that trench warfare was hell. But I had no idea. I learned a great deal from that film.

In my own youth, we fought another hellish war. My blood pressure kept me out of the service during the Vietnam era. I can't honestly say that I regret that; I have too many friends who weren't as lucky. Like Uncle Johnny (Dad was in the Navy), they didn't like to talk about what happened over there. The same is true of my cousins who fought in Korea and relatives who fought in World War II.

I'm not going to pretend that I can even imagine what it was like. But at this moment, as we commemorate the return of peace to a world riven by what up to then was the most horrible war in human history, I want to say thank you to all the men and women who endured that hell to keep me free.