November, Pt I

The Great War

November holds within its thirty day time frame, two holidays. Each holiday has its myths which have somewhat come apart in our 21st century storylines that struggle to paint Europeans as bad, and people of color as their victims. 

What a boring view of the past. No engagement in the richness of the tapestry of our ancestors. And, quite frankly, my dears, what does that make us, who are the inheritors? 

People who tell you to hate your ancestors, is brought to you by the people who hate themselves. Self hate is where it begins. How wars begin. For when powerful individuals hate themselves, watch out!  When the powerful set out to pluck the speck out of their powerful neighbor’s eye, the little guy gets to die.

Now, the little gal gets to be blown up along with her male counterparts. Haven’t we come a long way? 

Back to the holidays. The first holiday, Veterans Day, evolved from Armistice Day, a memorial day set aside to remember the fallen of the Great War. The second holiday is a day of gratitude for the founding of our nation.  Today, we’ll look at The Great War, aka, WWI. 

Originally, the day was called, Armistice Day. The armistice that began the ending of WWI was to take effect on the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month. Thus, on 11 November, at 11 am, guns, nearly all, stopped firing. The Great War, that great slaughter of young men, finally wound down. Men and bodies came home. Displaced person returned to what was left of their villages. And both soldiers and civilians spread a disease as the came home. More on that later. 

The orange poppy is the symbol for the eleventh of November. Few wear it in the States, but in Britain and France it is a popular sign of the end of that horrific war. My grandfather, Obie Crockett, was active in that war, though he didn't see much fighting because by the time he arrived, 1918, the war was nearing its end. He was stationed in France.

I prefer to refer to the cessation of the hostilities of WWI as the end of part one of the 20th Century’s 80 Year War.  More on that later.

The disease was the Spanish flu, a brand new virus that spread like wildfire throughout the world. Do not attempt to equate Covid with that HINI virus. Though the symptoms are quite similar, the Spanish flu, which may have come from Nebraska, prayed upon the young. When the fat lady sang in 1920, an estimated 20 million were dead from the flu. Later, that number would rise as the flu didn’t really make its way around the world for another two years. Some estimates place the mortality numbers up around 50 million. Add into that, the number the war killed off, and the revolutions killed off, and we are upwards to 70 million dead. The world population in the early 1920s, was under 2 billion. 

The disease beat out the numbers of dead in the war. Disease always does.

Now, back to the war. The myth associated with WWI is that this was the war to end all wars. The second myth was that we were in a new age, when kings were tossed, empires cut up, and Wilson chatted up his League of Nations. The results of all the after-war turmoil was a nasty revolution in Russia, including the murder of their royal family, and the punitive action taken against Germany that resulted in the rise in power of that other killer, Hitler.

In between the end of WWI and the beginning of WWII, about 20 years of misery enveloped the world. Aside from fascists and their cousins, the communists, the rest of the world struggled through a financial downturn that put nearly 25% of the working population out of work. 

In 1939, part 2 of the 80 years war, began. For six years, the turmoil of war and displaced persons, continued. If you take into account the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, factor in another few years. That is how I come up with the 80 years, because the creation of Israel is a direct result of the massacre of the Jews in Europe.

Thursday, the 11th day of the 11th month, is a day that now honors all veterans. As much as I am disgusted by humanity's inability to end their warring, I too will honor the vets who put their lives on the line. These are men and women who step out of their own daily life and do dangerous acts in the name of their nation. That is why we call them patriots.

So raise your glasses on this Veterans Day, and give them a cheer for doing the duty most do not wish to take up. Here's to my grandfather, Obie my father, James, and my uncle, Lawrence. Crocketts all. 

As for the wars, what is done is done. We best turn our faces to the future to figure out how not to get ourselves into these situations in the first place.