When 'Thanks' just won't go far enough

Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, November 11, 2013.

The mind inevitably turns, on Veterans Day, to thoughts of sacrifice and loss. Only someone with the soul of a bloodless bean-counter would suggest that it should be otherwise. But there is more to honor this day.

Americans had been trading lives, limbs and senses for the security and freedom of their peers for more than a century before Congress, following the lead of most states, reached back eight years and consecrated the anniversary of the 1918 armistice.

The drum roll has continued almost a century beyond that, and if there's an end to it, the end lies beyond our horizon.

Probably the day's most-cited commentary will be from a period not covered by Congress' proclamation.

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address sadly acknowledged the futility of trying to capture the enormity of war's cost with mere words. The man some call our most articulate president could only insist, as he stood a short distance from the place where tens of thousands had died only months before, that the living go on to ensure that the fallen "shall not have died in vain."

Congress, though, had its own say on what began as Armistice Day: "It is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations."

Here in this extraordinary place, where soldiers come and go and the roar of the big guns and the insistent staccato of helicopters go almost unnoticed, daily life offers reminders that no one has ever relieved us of either of those obligations.

This is where the significance of Veterans Day expands beyond the nation's war dead, and beyond the small percentage of troops who have seen combat.

Today is not Memorial Day. This is a day of recognition for those who fought, who clerked, who sent and received messages, who fed troops - for everyone who wore a uniform and served honorably, in peacetime or in time of war.

Can there be a war without a war effort, without training, without equipment and supplies? Possibly, but it's not something anyone is eager to try. So devote some thought to the human staging platform from which our forces are launched. And include, in your inadequate thanks, those whose faithful service left no blood on any battlefield nor any mark on history.

Remember, too, that duty calls us, veteran and non-veteran alike, to "perpetuate" that which we rarely grasp and to pursue, through "good will and understanding," a future in which our security doesn't exact such a terrible price.