Honoring the fight for peace

As we wake up this morning, on Veterans Day, our first thoughts

should be obvious ones. American soldiers are fighting in the streets

of a city far from their homes, in conditions and under stress the

large majority of us will never know. They are fighting, in a

profound sense, to ensure that we will never know such scenes. Our

first thoughts and our deepest prayers should be with them and with

their families.

There are, of course, many who do know and who do understand what

our soldiers are living through today. They walked across frozen

hills in Korea. They charged hidden enemy troops in Vietnam. They

crossed the same desert where our men and women again are doing

battle. Most famously, they landed on the beaches of Normandie more

than 60 years ago, turning the tide of World War II.

They also saw friends and family injured and killed.

For their sacrifices, they, too, deserve our thoughts, our prayers

and our thanks. They have earned it, and they have every right to

demand it.

America first recognized Veterans Day in 1926 as Armistice Day, a

commemoration of the end of World War I and those who fought in it.

In 1954, after World War II and the Korean War, veterans urged

Congress to change the holiday’s name, replacing the word Armistice

with Veterans to broaden the day’s meaning.

Later that year, President Dwight Eisenhower issued the first

“Veterans Day Proclamation.” His words then remain a poignant

challenge to us all: “Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower,

President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon all of

our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954, as Veterans Day.

On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who

fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores,

to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate

ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their

efforts shall not have been in vain.”

Let us all, indeed.