As a military historian, I honor the men and women who suit up to do jobs that range from brain-numbingly mundane to mind-bogglingly terrifying, in the service of their nation’s policies. This does not mean that I agree with all the conflicts to which they are sent; there have been several in my own lifetime that were utterly despicable.
So today’s earworm is Edwin Starr’s anthem from my youth, “War”.
Crank up the volume.
Today is Veterans Day in the United States, a day set aside for honoring the men and women who serve or have served in the uniformed services in defense of the nation.
The holiday dates back to the end of the 1914-1918 war; 11 November 1918 was the day the Armistice went into effect in Europe, silencing the guns of what was called the Great War. (More than 20 years later, we realized we’d have to start numbering these conflicts and renamed it World War I.) And this year marks the centenary of the establishment of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, as the remains of an unidentified American soldier were interred at that beautiful spot overlooking the nexus of national government.
Since then, he’s been joined by comrades from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. I think we’ve improved our identification technology such that no one killed in the service of his or her country is now “unknown”. An advancement, I suppose.
The focus of today is meant to be on the living; we have Memorial Day for those who gave all, but there is crossover. There’ll be a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown with the President, and other commemorations around the country and the world.
My company has a good percentage of veterans in it, and I like that we honor them pretty much every day. There was tremendous company and individual outreach to people after the pullout from Afghanistan in August. More recently, one of my colleagues put out a call to help resettle a former interpreter and his family, who’d been turfed out of his home and country by the Taliban, and we rallied to the cause. No flag-waving or chest-thumping; just step up and get ‘er done.
That, to me, is the epitome of honoring those who serve. And I’m here for it.
Temps were in the 60s yesterday as I went out on my afternoon break-from-the-screen walk. Those walks are important, because I’ve found that I spend more time glued to the monitor while WFH than I did in the office. The result is a clenched back and tired eyes.
Besides—I have to take my nearly-four-pound camera out every day
to get used to schlepping it.
Anyway, yesterday, I came across this little guy, who looks like he maybe had a tussle with someone who took a patch of his fur. He also looks like he’s stocking up on nuts for the winter.
The past couple of times I’ve swung through the corporate HQ
behind my house, I’ve run across Mr. You-Can’t-See-Me-I’m-a-Reed. He hasn’t been in his “usual” pond (there are
four), and it may be because the fishing is better in this one. Because that
seems to be his activity.
Viz:
(He couldn’t see me because I was pretending to be a tree.)
We in the US turned our clocks back from Daylight Saving Time yesterday. Frankly I think that humans pretending that they can control time is pretty arrogant. We can change clocks, but that does not affect anything but our own sense of importance. Try explaining to your cat or dog why their stomachs say it’s 5pm dinner time, but our clocks say it’s only 4pm.
I mean—instead of fooling around with time-keeping devices, we
could just have “winter hours”; schools and offices start the day an hour later
between November and March, if you’re concerned about morning commutes in the
dark.
But, hey, I’m not in charge of these things. So instead, I’m so
grateful that I got that hour of sleep I lost last March.