(Update: I've been told that this is quality writing and should be more visible. As such, I'm adjusting the formatting to add a title and byline, and explicitly licensing it using the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License with the additional rights and restrictions: Modification to the format of the text is allowed, translation is allowed as long as translations into German or French rearrange the order of existing trilingual sections to put the target language last, The byline must maintain the date and time of authorship as well as my name.)

The War is Over, We Live, Let Us Celebrate and Fight No More.
By Buddha Buck, 10 November 2005, 11:20pm EST

Four Score and Seven years ago, documents were signed in a railway car on a siding in a French forest which would make today remembered in history. But those documents aren't what's remembered. Rather, what happened 5 hours and 40 minutes later.

In that 5h40m window word went out to millions of soldiers across France: The war will be over; this is our last chance to take that trench/hill/field/land.

Paradoxically, with the end in sight, the fighting increased. The guns were louder, more constant, pounding the landscape, the people. The Englishman, the German, the Frenchman, the Canadian, the American, fighting, shooting, too scared to see the irony of their comrades death after the papers had been signed.

Then, suddenly, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the order came: Cease Fire! All along the front, the guns simultaneously fell silent. I can imagine, at first, nothing moved, as no one there trusted it. But slowly, a murmer would build across the battlefields, between the trenches, over the wires, der Krieg hat beendet, la guerre a fini, The war is over. As the cheers rose in the air, an undercurrent could be heard... je vis, ich lebe, I live.

Men from all sides, whom mere minutes ago had been trying to kill each other, now rose from the trenches, cut down the wires that separated them, and hugged each other, shook each others hands, shared food, drink, alcohol, cameradery. Three languages flowed from their tongues, and whether or not a man understood German or English or French didn't matter. The message was clear. The war is over. We are alive. Let us celebrate together and fight no more.

87 years have passed, and that message is nearly lost. In the US, where I am, we celebrate today as "Veteran's Day", celebrating those that served in the military. The "old name", of Armistice Day all but forgotten. I was surprised to see someone in the grocery store today wearing a poppy on their lapel -- and even that had a small Canadian Maple Leaf insignia at the center. Last Sunday traffic was tied up downtown due to a veteran's parade, and I suspect more people were annoyed at the delay than appreciated the marchers.

We have lots of holidays here to glorify war and the military: Memorial Day, to remember those who have fallen in battle; D-Day, to remember the sucessfull invasion of Europe; VE Day, to remember the victory over Germany in 1945; VJ Day, to remember the victory over Japan; Independence Day, to remember a declaration of war.

Let's remember this one, quiet holiday to celebrate wars end. November 11th. Armistice. The war is over. We live. Let us celebrate together and fight no more.