Veterans For
Peace Archives-2018- Reclaim Armistice Day On The 100th Anniversary Of The End
Of World War I
By Allan
Jackson
Maybe the
commemorations of Armistice Day 2018, the 100th anniversary of the
war to end all wars which fell very short on that score in 1918 were more
circumspect, more meaningful, more to the bone and marrow of that troubled continent’s
history but there were some forces in America, some organizations like Veterans
for Peace and Veterans Peace Action who strove mightily to make sure that November
11th was properly observed. Hey, you say that is Veterans Day, a day
when we honor our veterans. And that is unfortunately what the day has morphed
into since about the 1950s when the day’s name was changed in America. Not so
Europe where there are still too many bones and wounds to forget that
bloodletting and the subsequent one after that war failed to end all wars. So
many groups, not large, were prepared on the anniversary to reclaim the day when
the bloody war in Europe ended in 1918.
Among those who
were most active in the reclamation process were Veterans for Peace activists
and longtime friends Ralph Morris and Sam Eaton (dating back to their
respective arrests in Washington in `1971 when each with their respective cohorts
for their own reasons decide that if the government was not going to end the
Vietnam War which must have slipped the minds of those who touted WWI as the finish
they would stop the government. An odd but very honorable way to start a
lifetime friendship). Strangely it was Sam who was the most fervent for the change
back to the historic roots since he was a supporter of VFP and not a member having
been exempted from the draft in the 1960s due to extreme family hardship and
not Ralph a decorated Vietnam veteran who saw plenty of bloody action in the Central
Highlands.
The reason
that Sam took the lead here was actually personal. His maternal grandmother’s oldest
brother Frank, Frank O’Brian had been killed during the war in service to the
AEF. They had erected in town, on a town square a memorial plague honoring Frank
and his service which when the switch to Veterans Day occurred was changed to
honor all the town veterans. This broke his grandmother’s heart and that of her
sisters as well.
So behind Sam’s general motivation
to have some historic truth lies the truth that his uncle’s service and death
was not appreciated. Sam, with Ralph in tow though got every church in town
(and a few neighboring churches, Universalist-Unitarian, UU of course) to not
only ring the bells of their churches at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day of the eleventh month but call out a “Presente,” a sign of
respect for the fallen Frank O’Brian. Grandma Anna would have been proud.
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