Upcoming Sunday Worship Services
Veterans Day
Tomorrow we mark Veteran's Day across this fair land of ours. The Middleboro Gazette tells us that a parade will step off from the Town Hall parking lot at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow followed by a ceremony on the Town Hall lawn after the parade. For those of you who live in Lakeville, there will be an observance by the Hitchcock Memorial at the grounds of Assawompset School.
These types of events tend to take place on the margins of our awareness may seem quaint nowadays and may not evoke too much emotion from most of us who may barely notice them. But there is important meaning to these events, a significant story behind them, and whether we know it or not, we are bound up in it, because our country's relationship to war is ongoing, and some of its chapters will be written on our watch.
You know that Veterans Day is for honoring the military of have died in service of this country. It does not necessarily occur to us as we drink our coffee or butter our toast, that we are all responsible for those who die in our names, and also for the causes for which they have fought. But we are.
On Veterans Day, in honoring our dead, we look straight at the sacrifices of war - the more of us that do it the better. It is good to know the cost of war, and it is important to express our gratitude to those who have died for us and for the high ideals they were trying to uphold.
I'd like you to look at the clock for a moment. At exactly this time tomorrow, the 11th hour of the eleventh day of the 11th month - 84 years ago, an armistice between the Allies and the Central Powers ended the fighting of World War I. The guns of both the victors and the vanquished fell silent at 11 a.m. on November 11th - look at the clock - can you imagine what it must have felt like to know, that after six years of the worst fighting the world had ever seen, that the guns would finally be put down? Eighty-four years ago tomorrow at 11 am that is what happened - the guns went silent.
After the armistice, once again people of the world enjoyed the blessing of peace. But this was not thought to be any ordinary peace. In the months and years immediately following, WWI was believed to be "the war that would end all war." There had been no WWII - so this war, at first, was simply called the Great War. The Veterans Day information that follows comes from The American Book of Days, third edition, by Jane M Hatch, 1978
"News of the cease-fire produced mammoth celebrations. Bells pealed, whistles blew, and millions whispered prayers of gratitude. Parisians thronged the broad boulevards of their city to demonstrate their happiness, while in Great Britain thousands flocked to the royal palace and to the residence of the prime minister to sing and cheer. In New York City, more than a million people jammed Broadway, crowds paraded and danced through other thoroughfares, and tons of ticker tape showered out of windows on Wall Street. I'm sure the people of Middleboro did their share of celebrating too.
Bu the November 11 armistice was a cease-fire that left vast problems unresolved. Over 10 million were dead, huge areas of Europe lay in ruins and a satisfactory peace settlement was yet to be negotiated. A proclamation issued , by President Woodrow Wilson a full year later on November 11, 1919 reflected the pride our nation took in aiding the Allied military victory, and the idealism which followed in its wake.
"We were able to bring the vast resources, material and moral, of a great and free people to the assistance of our associates in Europe who had suffered and sacrificed without limit in the cause for which they fought. Out of this victory there arise new possibilities of political freedom and economic concert. The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men.
To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations." [1]
Yet the difficulties encountered in attempting to cope with the aftermath of the war had produced a sober atmosphere throughout the world. Many nations noted the first anniversary of the World War armistice on November 11, 1919, with veterans’ parades, secular and religious programs, and two minutes of silence in honor of the war dead. Two years after the 1918 armistice, France and England observed the anniversary by paying tribute to their soldiers who had died in the war.
During the dark days of fighting, many soldiers had been buried in unmarked graves. In 1920 the French selected one such unidentified French soldier, interred him in a sarcophagus beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and lit a perpetual flame over his tomb. That same year Great Britain also chose an unknown British soldier and with much reverence buried him near the tombs of English royalty in Westminster Abbey.
A year later, on November 11, 1921, the United States, following the lead of England and France, honoring its war dead. Months before, the remains of an American soldier had been disinterred in France and taken to the city hall at Chalons-sur-Marne, where they were placed in a casket inscribed “An unknown American soldier who gave his life in the great war.
After a transatlantic voyage aboard the cruiser Olympia, the body of the American Unknown Soldier arrived in the United States early in November 1921. The remains lay in state in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington. D.C., for three days. Then, on November 11, the body of the Unknown Soldier was taken to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Floral tributes and wreaths from all parts of the world decorated the gravesite; and foreign diplomats, members of all branches of the US armed services, and national dignitaries, including President Warren G. Harding, were present for the interment.
At 11:00 AM. - the time the armistice had gone into effect three years earlier - the casket was lowered into tomb. Above it subsequently rested a block of white marble, bearing the inscription “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”[2]
During the 1920s, annual observance of armistice became traditional on both sides of Atlantic. (Armistice is such a boring word, but it stands for that moment - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month - that absolute and magical moment that peace ruled around the globe!).
From the beginning, Armistice Day was a special tribute to the soldiers who died, with civic and religious leaders commemorating the sacrifices of the war dead. Their graves were celebrated, and, throughout the world, small red artificial poppies were worn to honor the deceased. (Poppies became symbolic because they grow wild in the Europe; the famous war poem “In Flanders Fields” alludes to the profusion of the blossoms where the dead are buried.) For many years, the American buglers would lay taps at main intersections in many localities, and for two minutes all traffic and business would stop as citizens called to mind those who had fallen in the Great War, the war to end all war. We had understood the war to be for a noble purpose. In asking for a declaration of war years earlier, President Woodrow Wilson had said:
"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make."[3]
The most widespread tributes to those who fought in World War I occurred in the 1930s, celebrated by people who initially believed that such a massive and bitter conflict could never again take place. We understood ourselves to be a great nation that had fought for high purposes.
But the outbreak of World War II in 1939 shattered the lofty dream of those who had thought to abolish war. The second global war resulted in more than twice as many deaths as the first and produced such vast material destruction that its extent was almost incomprehensible. For those who experienced the holocaust of World War II, the anniversary of the November 11 armistice that ended World War I was no longer relevant; it could no longer be considered the beginning of an era of lasting peace.
During the early 1950s, celebrations of the WW I cease-fire existed but received little attention. However, considerable enthusiasm was shown for the occasional November 11 observances in honor of all persons who had fought for their country — in World War II and the Korean War, as well as in World War I. In response to this change in attitude, Congress passed and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill specifying that Armistice Day would thereafter be known and commemorated as Veterans Day. In 1958 the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - became the Tomb of the Unknowns, with the addition of the bodies of two other unknown servicemen, killed in World War II and the Korean War.
In 1968, the 50th anniversary of the 1918 cease-fire, President Lyndon Johnson released a statement expressing renewed hope for the original dream that had so captured citizens and soldiers of the earlier war. He said the nations still look to "the day when all the guns of battle will be stilled.".
Ed Priest sings here - "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream"
Our nation’s principal observance of Veterans Day appropriately takes place at Arlington National Cemetery, where the Tomb of the Unknowns symbolizes the country’s desire to honor all the war dead. Throughout the year sentries maintain a constant vigil at the grave site; and since 1960, the flaming torch that was lighted in Antwerp, Belgium, and then brought to the United States, has burned steadily to honor those who died in the service of this country.
This year's Veterans Day Proclamation, President Bush quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower's words, asking all citizens to not only remember "the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly..." but also to rededicate themselves "to the task of promoting an enduring peace...."
Tonight many of you will attend the memorial service for one of our own veterans, Larry Carver. Larry was an ardent patriot, a watchdog for democracy, a willing soldier, and a man championed human rights, and justice and liberty for all people. He also worked hard as a Veteran for Peace, pressuring this country with every means at his disposal to live up to its highest ideals as he understood them. He was a model veteran, an ideal patriot.
The front-page picture in yesterday's Boston Globe, portrayed a mighty room filled with men (reminiscent of the dream Ed sang about - but in this case the UN Security Council) the group in the process of passing a unanimous resolution giving Iraq a final chance to disarm and so avoid war. We seem far, however, from being able to live our ideal. War will probably come. It is not unpatriotic, however, to pressure this country to be the best it can be - to exercise all its creativity and every peaceful means at its disposal to seek justice through peaceful means before resorting to arms.
In Arlington tomorrow, at 11:00 AM., a traditional program will begin. After a moment of silence, taps will be sounded, and President Bush or his representative will place a wreath on the shrine. The dignitaries at the grave site will then go to the oval amphitheater behind the tomb, where representatives of the armed forces and several thousand spectators will participate in solemn ceremonies. There will be observances all around the country. But wherever and however Veterans Day is observed, all the day’s programs have a common theme: they are means of paying homage to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have sought to defend our country.
We pay our soldiers homage tomorrow, but we also honor them when we pressure our politicians to work toward creating a world so wise, so compassionate and so creative, that fighting and war become a thing of the past and no soldier ever need give that last full measure of devotion again. That is the dream.
***Veterans day information for this sermon comes from The American Book of Days, third edition, by Jane M Hatch, 1978