When I was in the 7th grade we had a BIG American History final exam. On that exam there were some 150 - 200 dates and events that we had to know. I remember my dad helping me the day and night before the exam. He would ask me a date and I was suppose to give him the event... my answer was, I don't know, so he would tell me and then I would have to repeat the date and event three times and on to the next one, same thing over again, I didn't know, repeat, then back to the previous date/event.. this went on and on for hours... until finally I didn't even know my own name. No wonder he was so good at getting confessions from prisoners, I would have admitted my name was Mudd [you know Dr. Mudd accused of helping John Wilkes Booth] to get him to leave me alone. At that point I didn't care if I passed or failed.
The next day I took the exam. We did not have multiple answers to choose from. We had essay questions, fill in the blanks, mix and match, and true and false. How did I do on that exam...You may ask !.. I missed ONE, just one question... and to this day it is about the only answer that I remember... November 11, 11AM, 1918.. Armistice Day.
It commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiegne, France for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at 11 o'clock in the morning --- "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" 1918. For years on that date at 11AM, people stopped what they were doing and had 2 minutes of prayer.
Then in June 1968 President Ike came along and changed it's name to Veterans Day. It just doesn't have the same meaning for me as Armistice Day.
Then on this day in 1970, my mother died. Thirty-seven years ago. She was a relative young woman of just turned 60.
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I remember the 1930s parades in little Ambridge, Pa., and how the People clapped and cheered and yelled when the WW-I Veterans' section paraded by, flag at the front.
I remember two of the vets. One was a town drunk everyone cut slack for, but who scared us kids when he approached us.
Later on, in Lexington, Ky., I met another WW-I Vet. This one had been gassed in battle, causing him to talk with a slight slur and as though something was caught and swollen in his throat.
So 11/11 is Armistice Day for me, too, and a day to remember those damaged Veterans.
"Veterans Day?" To honor "all" veterans is to "honor" no veterans.
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