Remembrance Day 2022

Some call it by its old name: Armistice Day. Others call it Remembrance Day. Still others know it only as November 11th. No matter what you call it, November 11th is, or should be more than just a date. It's a day to remember those who gave their lives for our countries in a number of wars.

The exact number of wars is debatable. Depends which country you're talking about, and who's counting. But they were all "good wars"... "just wars"... right? They all needed to be fought, right? To preserve freedom and democracy and equality and all those other Good Things. Right? Maybe it's all debatable.

The "Armistice" in Armistice Day refers to the truce proclaimed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 -- the armistice that ended the Great War, the war that would end all wars. But, as "The Ballad of Willie McBride" says, it all happened again... And again... And again.

After the Battle of Fredericksburg, Robert E. Lee -- the greatest American general of all time -- said to General James Longstreet, "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."

But it seems we have grown too fond of it. Perhaps it's because advances in technology have reduced the body counts. On "our side", at least. Or maybe it's the advances in medicine and hygiene which means that, nowadays, more soldiers and sailors and airmen die of wounds than of disease and starvation.

Whatever it is, we seem to scarcely finish one war before starting another. Sometimes we don't even wait for the first war to end, so we can fight two or three or four wars all at the same time. All for freedom, democracy, equality, human rights, and generally to make the world a better place. For "our side", at least.

Not all of the thousands upon thousands who died fighting our "good wars" did so for the sake of freedom and all that. Some of them did, sure, but some of them died because they obeyed orders and went unflinchingly to the death to which they were sent. It is those men and women -- the ones who didn't want to be there and shouldn't have been there in the first place -- whom Walt wishes to remember today.

Footnote: Canadians will not be surprised, I think, to learn that their prime minister, Blackie McBlackface will be AWOL from the Remembrance Day ceremonies in the world's second-coldest capital. His nibs will be in Cambodia, where it's warm, for a Very Important Meeting.