The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

Source

I don't observe Veterans Day the way many Americans do. Why? Well, it preempted a much older observance - Armistice Day. Remembrance Day to many in the British Commonwealth, a day set aside to remember those who fell in the Great War. World War I, a war in which my great uncle gave his life along with millions of others.

We got there a bit late, we helped turned the tide, but Americans spent less than two years in the horror of the Western Front. So perhaps we can be forgiven for having our own Remembrance Day in May. Originally observed as Decoration Day, Memorial Day was originally about remembering those who died in the horror of the American Civil War. When brother killed brother, sometimes quite literally.

I don't need a special day, I came home, many did not. I remember them, twice a year as it turns out. Memorial Day and Armistice Day.

To each his own.

Particularly because of this line in that poem above ...

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

I will never break faith with those who fell.

Never.