Veterans' Day was originally the world's response to the horrible mass murder of World War 1. The armistice that ended that awful and pointless conflict was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month ... November 11th. Marked in the US as 'Veterans' Day'.
The Veterans' Day does not exist so that we can all cheer on the military as it leads further and further into more and more war. Veterans' Day exists as a reminder that if you let the generals make the decisions, then they can kill 60,000 in a day. Just like at the Somme where they kept ordering line after line of troops up towards the machine guns. The British command was full of the philosophical predecessors of Gen. McCrystal who thought that "more troops" was always the answer. Line after line of them sent towards the machine guns. And not just for a day, but for day after day for an entire summer. This effort moved the German line back a meaningless 7 miles, but never achieved the breakthrough that the generals kept saying was only one more 'surge' away. 432,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded in those months. "More troops" was not the answer.
Veterans' Day is the cry of the world to end this madness.
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