Opinion: Time to remember past world wars

This week we will celebrate Veterans Day, on Nov. 11.

As I’ve written before, when I was a child we celebrated that day as Armistice Day. During the Great War, on the Western Front, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, after fighting more than four years, an armistice was signed, and the guns on the Western Front fell silent.

Also, as a child, we were required to memorize a poem from that conflict written by a Canadian doctor and teacher who served in the war. John McCrae’s memorial poem is not quoted much today, but from that poem sprang the tradition of the Buddy Poppy, that you still see today in the form of small paper flowers that veterans’ organizations distribute.

McCrae wrote “In Flanders Fields:”

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest military mobilization in the nation’s history and after American forces had fought in Korea, Congress, at the urging of veterans’ organizations, decided to replace the word “Armistice” with the word “Veteran,” and Veterans Day was born.

The First World War was originally called the Great War because nobody believed that world leaders could be so stupid as to instigate another insanity that would require the addition of Roman Numerals to identify it. Today, we find ourselves in danger of blundering into something that could become WWIII.

Talk of nuclear weapons being used in the current Ukraine conflict seems to be escalating on a daily basis. Surely, world leaders could not be so stupid as to instigate a third war to win all wars in less than 150 years.

Don’t bet on it.

Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:

[email protected]