The War to end all Wars
I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November 11th, actually my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the 11th minute of the 11th hour of Armistice Day, which was the 11th day of the 11th month.It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of people stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not. So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,
from "Breakfast of Champions"
posted by CM @ 5:45 PM
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