Veteran’s Day: 2019

MOTUS A.D. ^ | 11-11-19 | MOTUS

[NOBO2012]

The price of greatness is responsibility. – Sir Winston Churchill

It is hard to adequately acknowledge the sacrifices made by the men and women who responded to that call of responsibility, especially in times of war, but today we honor them. The President will do so by attending and speaking at the beginning of New York’s Veterans Day parade. The 100 year old New York tradition which began with a huge tickertape parade honoring our troops returning from World War I which had technically ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

The “war to end all wars” of course did not.

It would be nice if we could focus today solely on the the sacrifice our armed forces have always made when called upon to protect and defend our country. It would be refreshing to go just one day without the media being in full cheer mode for the Deep State coup being conducted in plain sight. It would also be nice if we could make it through a single day without a batch of nitwits somewhere ranting about social justice, male toxicity and the evil patriarchy.

Have at it women

Wouldn’t it be swell if just today we could all acknowledge that in times of threat America has always pulled together, men and women, black and white, service members and civilians,

Ford Motor Co.’s Willow Run Bomber plant, where Rosie the Riveter and many like her assembled B-24s  during WWII

to fight against an evil far greater than referring to someone by the wrong pronoun. Could we not all concede that fighting for the the right to choose your own “gender” from a list of 31 flavors is not the moral equivalent of fighting for your right to exist at all?

There certainly are many Jews who – were they alive - might think that the evil of true tyranny and genocide trump your gender choice and cultural appropriation issues.

All I know is that I for one am eternally grateful to those who served as armed centurions at the gate throughout America’s history.

Outside the American sector there are wolves everywhere; that’s why we fight

While the face of freedom’s enemy may morph over time, it never goes away.That is why we’ll always need people on the wall, willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the malignancy at bay; people who don’t need safe spaces and for whom “trigger warning” means something altogether different than hurt feelings. It is why today we honor all those who have responded to the call to serve. Please accept my heartfelt gratitude for helping preserve the last best hope of the world.

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

Posted from: MOTUS A.D.

[Salman]

[knighthawk]

Once my coutry was ruled by tyranny from the nazi’s. Then it was was threatened by the tyranny from communism. So today I will honor those who helped to liberate and protect us!

[LS]

This original date, “Armistice Day,” ended what was up to that time the most horrific war in world history. No, probably not the worst in terms of casualties. There were wars in China that likely killed more.

But the use of terrible new weapons in large scale for the first time-—poison gas, the machine gun, barbed wire as a defensive tool, airplanes, submarines-—changed the face of Europe forever.

For one thing, just as the US after the Civil War, the massive depopulation of YOUNG European Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen changed society by advancing women’s power. This led to a decade of timidity which arguably permitted Hitler to rise and Mussolini to become more ambitious. It directly fed into the reluctance of Neville Chamberlain to stop Hitler early. The temporary feminization of Europe meant that when the next war did come, it would be even worse, as nations would struggle to catch up to the Nazis, who “re-masculinized” early.

One footnote-—impossible to prove. On 11/11/19 at 11 in the morning, American field artillery was pounding German lines. A captain Harry Truman was in charge of one of those batteries. He was still firing as the armistice was announced.

It is “conceivable” that Truman “fired” the last shots of both World Wars, from his artillery piece in WW I and behind his desk in WW II as he ordered the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan.

[hanamizu]

It is “conceivable” that Truman “fired” the last shots of both World Wars, from his artillery piece in WW I

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I have a set of books printed in 1919—about the Great War—at least as it was seen by those who lived through it. One photo shows what is supposed to be the firing of the last artillery shot of the war. It bothers me. Some guy with a watch is going to try and get the last shot in before 11AM. And some poor schmuck is going to die in the last 30 seconds of the war.

[LS]

I don’t think Truman had that on his mind.

[Bull Snipe]

about 12 years ago, on Veterans day, saw a PBS show called the “Last Day of WWI”. It gave a detailed account of what the Germans, French British, and Americans did in the last day of the war. It also gave the names & photos of those men, on either sides, that were the last to die for their country in combat before the armistice took effect.

[hanamizu]

I may have seen that program. The first and last British deaths occurred within yards of each other in Belgium.

[Billthedrill]

A fine book on the topic is Joseph Persico's Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour. Another, that I just finished, is Robert Gerwarth's The Vanquished: Why World War I Never Ended, which details the events in central and southern Europe from the Armistice to 1923. For me that was a real revelation and helped explain why World War II was inevitable.

Bottom line on why World War I started I shall leave to a history professor of mine who said he could sum it up in two words: "Nobody knows." As historian Christopher Clark put it, there is more published literature on the topic than any individual can read in a lifetime, and the very same data that lead you to conclude that the war was impossible will lead you to conclude it was unavoidable.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting.

[Grampa Dave]

Great post, I and hundreds of ancestors going back our revolutionary say thank you.

There are some incredible offers from American Business to vets.

If you are hungry or plan to eat out, the list below might be of help:

The following is a list of Veterans Day discounts at restaurants for 2019. Visit often as the list is now being updated as new discounts come in.

https://www.military.com/veterans-day/restaurants-veterans-day-military-discounts.html