Armistice Day: From the Heart of Pain

Armistice Day at the Arc du Triomphe, November 11, 2005.

Last year I spent the whole of November in Europe visiting my parents. For my second weekend there, we decided to travel down from Brussels to Paris as I had never been. After making our reservations we realized that it we would be in the city on November 11 - their Armistice Day.

Here in the US we have Veteran's Day - a day set aside for us to remember the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. While I was growing up, I was constantly confusing Veteran's Day with Memorial Day (in purpose - not time). Many of my friends, even those of us with veterans as loved ones, don't even recognize Veteran's Day as a 'holiday' (a perverse word for it). My postman who is, himself, a veteran was confused when I asked him on Friday what he was doing today. I had to remind him it was Veteran's Day - he just said it was nice to have a day off.

It's sad that in a time where we have soldiers fighting a war overseas and dying almost every day, that we would be so oblivious to a day of remembrance and celebration of the sacrifice they make for their country.

However, in Paris, and across Europe, November 11 holds a much deeper meaning. It is not just a day to recognize their armed forces - but also for them to take time to remember the sacrifices of their people and country during war. When war is on your own soil and in your own yard, sacrifice takes on an entirely different meaning. November 11 just isn't another day - or another government holiday - it's the day that meant the end of hostilities on the Western Front during World War I. The armistice occurred at 11am on November 11, 1918. Armistice Day in Europe is a memorial to the eight million people who died during WWI as well as those who died during WWII (62 million).

When I was standing under the Arc du Triomphe, the procession of wreaths having come and gone, the memorial now being guarded by young servicemen, I was struck by the immediacy of it all. I had seen the remnants of the trenches, the memorials that dot the European countryside, the old barracks from the European wars. These wars, this sacrifice, was real. Not just something you read in school or heard on the news - but a tangible, true thing to the people who were standing near me.

But it wasn't the grand memorial under the Arc that affected me the most. It was a small memorial with just a few wreaths and flowers just outside of the stairs down to the tunnel access to the Arc. A small plaque was bolted to the wall that read:

In remembrance of the students of Paris who lead the first uprising against the Nazi occupation.
All lost their lives.

That it had been students - civilians - who had lead the first resistance to the Nazis during WWII - and that they had all been killed was both shocking and tremendously moving. These had not been uniformed servicemen - but rather young people who did what they could to fight against a terrible force. And, in their sacrifice, we are reminded that the casualties of war are not limited by ones rank or file.

Steve Mason, the poet laureate of the Vietnam Veterans of America wrote in his poem The Wall Within

The values of our society

seem to be distributed in our parks

and reflected in the eyes of veterans

who look there for validation

and find only confusion and sadness.

Strange, I have observed no monuments

to survivors.

No obelisk to mark the conflict

of those who risked and lived,

perhaps to fight again,

or perhaps to speak of peace.

Nowhere, yet, a wall for the living.

There is no wonder

guilt is the solve survivor of war.

We do not celebrate life after combat

because our concept of glory

lives neither in victory not in peace,

but in Death.

So, as we end this Veteran's Day, we should remember that war requires sacrifice - and that we are not alone in our losses. Others have been here before, and others will come that will know our pain. But as we send our young men and women off to fight, we must remember that those they leave behind with no promise of a return are as much as part of this war as those they send away. And that war can rend, but it can also heal. Sacrifice, like love, is a universal concept. When we recognize the sacrifice of others, we enhance our own humanity and can begin to heal. For it is in our humanity that we will be united.

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