Clio/Two War Memorials

«Clio

Two War Memorials

It would be hard to find a nation that does not memorialize war in some way.

This fighting and marking of battles seems to be deep within the nature of humans. When the gods were assumed to have the same failings as humans, they were said to fight and bicker amongst themselves constantly, sometimes causing and influencing battles among humans just to settle their own feuds. (Clio also notes, however, that in human battles it was common practice to claim the gods were on your side, so the record is open to dispute.)

Latter-day gods decry war, as a whole, but war does not seem to be lessened because of it. Clio can only assume that humans like to fight.

She does notice a change in the milestones. In bygone days, a war holiday was likely to mark a major victory; now a war holiday is more likely to mark the end of a conflict. Celebrating the end of war is an improvement, for certain, but Clio notes that war never seems to end for very long.

Perhaps the problem is that humans forget so quickly. Clio will speculate on this in more depth in the future, when she writes about the Jewish Holocaust. In brief: Humans are constantly conflicted between the desire to forget their dark moments and the need to remember them. Generally the former wins.

Official obscurity

If you are an American (and Clio begs forgiveness from readers of other nations), chances are quite good that you do not know what either your Veterans' Day or Memorial Day really commemorates.

When pressed, most Americans assume that the former is to generically honor those who have served in the armed forces. That's the easy one; the name gives it away.

The latter marks ... the end of a war? (Did World War II end in ... hmmm, when is Memorial Day anyway? In the spring sometime, right?) All those who have fought in a war? All those who have died in a war?

It must be admitted that the American government has not helped this state of affairs. At various points both dates have been changed to ones more efficient for bureaucratic purposes, and by officially taking a more generic interpretation of each holiday, it has effectively made them meaningless. First it separated each holiday from its date, and then its context. In the case of Veterans' Day, the government actually changed the holiday's name. All the better to forget, while pretending to remember.

Two minutes of silence

Once upon a time, many of the civilized countries of the world fought "the war to end all wars," a misnomer if there ever was one, for the war was replaced by an even bigger, worse, more tragic one only a handful of years later. The war was called World War I, although that name came later - one must have a Chapter 2 in order to realize that the first was Chapter 1.

Chances are good, if you are reading this, that you can't remember when it ended; you are more than likely under the age threshold, and the date is lost to you - although Clio has given you a big hint.

Veterans' Day was originally Armistice Day, and it marks the signing of the armistice which ended World War I. The armistice was signed early on the morning of November 11, 1918. It went into effect later that morning, as used to be said, "on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month." Now, Clio imagines, you will never forget the meaning of that date again. For many years it was traditional to observe two minutes of silence at that time.

Remember that this was the "war to end all wars." Many memorials were devised to remind the participants of their folly. The Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier in America, the Arc de Triomphe in France, and the Whitehall Cenotaph in Britain were all World War I memorials.

But a bigger folly had taken place. The extreme punitive measures taken against Germany after World War I practically ensured that the next war would soon follow, as the Germans chafed under the combined weight of their ruined economy and heavy payment of reparations. When the next war came along, it dwarfed World War I. Counts of war deaths are always rather subjective, but as a safe estimate, at least four times as many soldiers died in World War II as in its predecessor. Suddenly marking the "war to end all wars" didn't seem as important anymore.

By the time the Korean War ended, American citizens had begun using Armistice Day as a day to remember all the war dead, not just those of World War I. In 1954 the American government officially named the holiday Veterans' Day. (In Britain and Canada the holiday has been renamed Remembrance Day, and is similarly diluted in spirit.) For a time, the American government made this a floating holiday, celebrating it on the fourth Monday in October. Clio is unclear on what caused them to come to their senses.

Clio feels that by giving in to the idea that this cycle of death was a repeating one, by accepting war as somewhat inevitable, the purpose of the holiday was completely undermined. It would have been far better to continue to devote the holiday to "the war to end all wars," so that the American public could look at it today and remind themselves of how wrong they were. Clio never underestimates the power of collective guilt.

If one requires a holiday to memorialize the war dead, Clio also points out, there is already another serving that purpose. But it, too, originally had a much more specific meaning.

"Impartial in their offerings"

Memorial Day, in some eyes, is a secular All Saints' Day, a day to honor all the dead, not just the war dead. But to most Americans, Memorial Day is that holiday on the last Monday of May, an excellent time to have a barbecue or perhaps see a parade. Both extremes strike Clio as poor remembrances.

Memorial Day is actually a Civil War holiday. Although it has been extended, by implication, to all American war dead, the Civil War - in many respects the conflict with the greatest implications for American citizens - was its original rationale.

Memorial Day originally was celebrated on May 30 as Decoration Day, where war graves were decorated with flowers. There are many claims and stories about who was first to call this holiday Memorial Day; the American government officially recognizes Waterloo, New York as the source, but clearly many others throughout the country had similar ideas.

For example, in Columbus, Mississippi in 1866, a group of women went to decorate the graves of some who had died in the very bloody battle of Shiloh. At the time Columbus was occupied by the victorious Union army, and some feared that this gesture would reopen old wounds.

However, as the New York Herald later reported:

The women of Columbus, Mississippi, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and the National soldiers.

Clio believes that May 30 is a fiat date with no true significance, although it is sometimes pointed out that the last of the Confederate forces finished surrendering around the end of May. She is therefore not much dismayed by the idea that it is now celebrated on the last Monday of that month, rather than on a specific date.

She notes that although many Americans have forgotten its Civil War beginnings, somehow America has managed to never repeat its mistake. So she can hardly object to making this holiday's purpose more general, divorcing it from its Civil War-specific meanings. It could be that its original task has actually been accomplished (although Clio suspects that other circumstances are as much to be credited for the national peace).

What she objects to is forgetting to give any significance or remembrance to the holiday at all. Once the purpose of the holiday is gone, why have a holiday at all? If one wants only to have a barbecue, then declare a National Barbecue Day.

Copyright © 2009   Return to Clio's top page