Expanded Post from 2006

Veterans' Day: November 11. Written for Miriam and Alice, then small children.

When my mother was 8 years old, she experienced a very important event in history. For several years, many countries had been fighting in a terrible war called the Great War, now called the First World War. On November 11, 1918, the war ended. My mother used to tell us how happy and relieved everyone had been because the fighting was over and the soldiers could come home.

People all over the United States and Canada came out of their houses and into the streets to sing, dance, and celebrate, as shown in the picture (below) of the celebration in Detroit, Michigan. People in many other countries in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere were also very happy that the fighting had stopped. Everyone hoped that there would never be another war.

A year later, November 11 became a national holiday when people remembered the war, and every year afterwards people celebrated. When my mother was young it was called Armistice Day, because armistice means the agreement that ends a war. She told us that every year on this holiday at 11 minutes after 11 in the morning there was a minute of silence to honor the soldiers. Every year, her teachers told her about the war. They hoped that the end of the First World War had brought an end to all wars. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

Poppies from a web search.

Poppies became a symbol for remembering the war because of the poem titled “In Flanders Fields,” written by Canadian physician and Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae on May 3, 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres. Children used to memorize this poem, but I doubt if the do so any longer. The poem is available at the Poetry Foundation website: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47380/in-flanders-fields

War Memories

During the First World War, many red poppies had begun to bloom near the battlefields where the soldiers were fighting. 

Poppies: symbol of rememberance.

It is now 108 years since the end of the war — 2026. Virtually no one living today can have personal memories of the war. However, 20 years ago, there were still a reasonable number of people who did remember. Specifically, in 2006, my friend Sheila asked her father if he remembered the end of the First World War. In 1918, he was only three years old, but all those years later, he remembered one thing about the end of the war. His family lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, near the Water of Leith, a river. His neighbor was a soldier. His mother told him to watch for the neighbor: "If you see him marching home it means that the war is over." One day his mother pointed out the neighbor was marching home along the banks of the river, wearing his full regimental uniform, which included a scarlet diagonal sash. She said, "This means that the war is over."

Post © 2006, 2026 mae sander