A thought experiment on Veterans Day, part 2

Ok, so I’m a bigot, and I hate freedom and the military.  Great.  Here’s part two.

Christmas is coming.  I hope you all have your gift lists thought out and started!  No?  You better get on that then.  I don’t have mine done, but I will be shopping online for everyone, sorry!

Joe, what the heck does that have to do with Veterans Day and your virtue signaling?  Well, self, I’ll tell you!

My deeper understanding of Armistice Day came from an audio book I listened to on the way to and from tech school in 2008. It is called, Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce.  I might even have a hard copy, if you want to borrow it.  Snopes, that biased fact checker, even has an article, if you can believe it. 

The premise of the book is the spontaneous and remarkable unofficial truce that happened in the trenches in documented by the letters and orders, real primary documents, of the time!  If you are any kind of historian, that is a huge deal.  The title of the book references the fact that on Christmas Eve night, the guns fell silent.  And for days after, as well.  In fact, the soldiers on those lines had to be moved, because they weren’t willing to go back to battle.  After a few days of finding out that the enemy wasn’t an animal, and that mutual interests existed, it was a lot harder to go back to killing with no knowledge of the real reason why.

The generals, who knew so much better than any common soldier, moved them away from the front lines so that the war would continue.

Think about that for a second.  They ignored a chance to establish peace and let the war go on for four more years.  We celebrate armistice day, but the bastards in charge made the slaughter happen.  How many millions would have not died?  And for what?

You ask me why I hate Veterans Day?  This is why.  And I went to Catholic school, and I am a history major, and I didn’t hear of this till after school, and it is scoffed at in military circles, and by historians.

I want you to imagine a very cold night, late and far from home, and it is near Christmas.  You are not near your family, you are alone.  Across a stretch of distance is your hated rival, from whatever rivalry.  And all of a sudden, a Christmas carol that you like starts playing from their side.  After a while, you start to hear it louder, and maybe you find yourself humming along.   This is what happened that night, leading to a crossing of no-mans land, an exchange of food, and a  discovery that the other side is just as human as you are.  Amazing.

I cry now, every time I hear a good rendition of the song , Silent Night.  It means more to me now than just the incredibly significant fact of the God of the universe coming to earth as a wee baby, but also the untold millions who might have lived if the people in charge on both sides could have distinguished a truly remarkable occurrence, and capitalized on the advantages brought.

Instead there was more war, for no gain, and a dehumanizing of the enemy that has led to much of the confusion in today’s society, war, peace, policy, and the way we deal with each other.

Before you tell me that I am delusional, and that nothing would have stopped it, consider this.  The three major parties in the conflict at the time shared a common religious base, Christianity, a common history, Europe, and had interacted with each other in each other’s countries for years.  Peace among them would have been much easier than peace in the middle east.

But our “betters” know better, don’t they?  They tell us that every chance they get.  Bastards, that type of thinking led to this sad day, known as Armistice Day, or Veterans Day.

Part three, where I tie in this mentality to modern errors.  And more virtue signaling!