Is “Veteran’s Day” a Misnomer?
November 11, 2011
FRED OWENS writes:
On this day in 1918 the first World War came to an end. That’s why it’s a holiday. It is not good to make holidays generic. Holidays cannot be generic, because they are special days. This holiday, by extension, honors all veterans, but it should be focused and named after the Armistice that ended that war 93 years ago.
We use to honor the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but it became meaningless and generic when we changed that to President’s Day.
We still have Christmas, to honor the One Savior — should we change that to All Messiahs celebrating All Good Things from All Religions?
Fred adds a short time later:
May I disagree with myself? I have just noticed the warm greetings extended to all veterans being posted on Facebook. (I know that Facebook is not the heart of sincerity or robust meaning, but it where many Americans come to meet in cyberspace. It is modern, for better or worse, and honoring veterans is modern too.)
If we call it Veterans Days we focus on those living veterans among us and, by extension, those who have passed away, and especially those who died protecting American freedom.
I still oppose “President’s Day” but I think Veterans Day might be a good change, as long as we also remember the Armistice of November 11, 1918.
— Comments —
Laura writes:
Fred has convinced me. Veterans Day should be called Veterans Day.
Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:
There is another holiday, Memorial Day, which used to be called Decoration Day. The name “Decoration Day” refers to the activity of decorating the graves of the Civil War dead. Memorial Day ought to be renamed Decoration Day, its original moniker, and the practice of decorating the graves actually should be encouraged anew. World War One is an ambiguous chapter in United States history. A good case exists that the USA should not have participated in the war between the Axis and the Triple Entente. Sensitive people should certainly be thankful for the Armistice, but, in my opinion, they should not take sides in that war. Morally, WWI is much more ambiguous than WWII, where the argument is persuasive that the USA needed to intervene against Nazidom and needed also to defeat Japanese aggression in the Pacific.
We should relegate “Veterans Day” to lesser status and re-invigorate the traditional Decoration Day. All veterans will one day stand in need of decoration and it is seemly that those veterans still living should pay respects to the honored dead, who made the supreme sacrifice in service to their country. At least we should rename Veterans Day “Fallen Soldiers Day.”
