Remembrance on Veterans Day

It was 11:11 on the morning of November 11, 1918 that the guns finally fell silent, signaling the end of the Great War. Millions of haggard men hesitantly raised their heads out from the dirty, dingy trenches that scarred the fields of Europe, and the world breathed a collective, strained sigh of relief. To be sure, there would be troubles ahead.

But it is through the smoky haze of past battlefields that today we remember all the men and women who have served our country throughout the short history of America. As Abraham Lincoln said fifty years before our Veterans Day holiday came into being:

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…"

We here at CSIS, find little comfort knowing that wars and conflict continue to play a part in human suffering on Earth. But on this day as on any other we see fit to heed Lincoln’s words and remind ourselves of our debt to those who fight for our nation, regardless of what we may feel about the wars themselves. Paul, in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, writes:

"Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me."

As a society, we would do well to make sure our veterans do not feel this way.