h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is an excerpt from a speech given in 1921.

ARMISTICE DAY ADDRESS

Major General Milton J. Foreman (Commander-in-Chief, Illinois National Guard)

It Is impossible to address an audience composed so largely of young men and women on the anniversary of Armistice Day without reflecting on the meaning of that day to the young men and women of America. When silence fell at eleven o'clock on November 11, 1918, after more than four interminable years of the unbelievable noise of war, those of us elders who listened in that instant of healing peace, thought first of all: "This saves our young men."

...

Perhaps not at once, but very soon, the belief sprang up in our hearts that the armistice represented not so much the triumph of the Allied Armies over the Germans as the wider triumph of good things In general over evil things in general. We believed that it had brought, not for the moment only but for the long future, good tidings of great joy to all the world. We knew that it announced the end of the most murderous struggle the world has ever seen but we expected more. We expected it to be the beginning of a day of ew hope for every country. From the war which it closed we expected to learn certain lessons of high value. You all remember how innumerably that phrase was repeated — "the lessons of the war." What were they?

In the first place, there must be no more wars. ...

In the second place, we were taught the possibilities of international cooperation. ...

In the third place, we were shown the folly of kings and the strength of organized democracies. ...

Well, in three years how far have we learned those lessons? What, compared with our hopes, have been the actual developments since November 11, 1918?

General Foreman goes on to discuss the situation in 1921. But I'd like you to realise two things:

1. People didn't use to take Armistice Day as an opportunity to glorify war. Not even the former soldiers.

2. The questions raised by General Foreman are the questions we still need to be asking.

General Foreman wanted to be a good ancestor. How about us?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSvI9MrI0Ro