Today, I’m thankful for the remembrance of all the soldiers who have ever worn a uniform in the name of this great nation.
Our history of a species on this planet is marked by both good and bad events. The key is neither to emulate or denigrate the past, but rather to learn from its prior existence. In turn, we should apply those lessons to the sum of current knowledge to ensure we are working towards the betterment of all humanity. John F. Kennedy once said, “there are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.” In other words, we should not choose to live in the past, but we should also not ignore it.
The lessons we take from the past should serve as our foundation upon which we build. For this reason, I’m grateful that a day such as the one we commemorate today exists. Here in the United States, we celebrate Veterans Day, a day in which we fittingly remember all those brave American soldiers, living and dead, who made the ultimate sacrifice to fight to guard the sacred land on which we live. Similarly, in the British Commonwealth of Nations, our friends from these 54 common states celebrate Remembrance Day – a reminder of the passing of those soldiers who fought to secure their freedom from the Great War (World War I).
Both holidays are born out of a solemn event that transpired on this exact day in 1918. Hostilities between the German army and the Allied forces came to a formal truce on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, in the eleventh month of that year. An armistice was signed on a railway car in the Forest of Compiègne between the Allies, led by Supreme Commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch, and 4 German signatories, led by Major General Detlof von Winterfeldt. Importantly, the armistice was a written agreement to halt fighting (without any formal surrender). In fact, the official declaration would not come to fruition for another 7 months, when the various parties congregated in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles to sign the formal terms of the peace treaty. What precipitated this agreement to end fighting has been debated by historians and other scholars for many decades. Some argue that the fighting was already nearing its end once the fragile alliance between Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria fell apart. Others argued the infusion of US troops into the military arena earlier that same year demoralized the spirit of the German forces, especially as they rapidly lost their foothold in key parts of western Europe. Finally, others believe forces external to the war played a tremendous role in hastening the culmination of the military struggle.
As to this final point, I point you to another battle the world was facing that same year – the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Although it is not entirely possible to accurately reflect the full impact of this event due to the limited diagnostic tools at the time, some estimate that the 1918 pandemic, which was caused by an H1N1 strain of influenza virus, infected up to 500 million humans and resulted in the death of somewhere between 20 to 100 million individuals worldwide. To put this into proper perspective so we can fully comprehend its magnitude, the pandemic affected nearly a third of the world’s population and resulted in the death of up to 5% of the population at the time. Moreover, the pandemic had an impact not just on the traditionally vulnerable, such as the elderly, disabled, and immunosuppressed, but it also took an enormous toll on previously healthy young adults. In an effort to maintain morale at the time of World War I, the event was significantly underreported by the United States and many European war-torn countries, including the UK, Germany, and France. Interestingly, Spain was not fighting in the war, so the Spanish media was actively reporting on this devastating infectious calamity. Sadly, as a result, the pandemic has colloquially (and inappropriately) been called the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic, thereby lending further proof that ‘shooting the messenger’ is not just a modern-day occurrence.
Beginning in the spring of 1918, the pandemic would have a massive toll on the war effort. In fact, some argue that what the US brought to the battlefield in early 2018 was not just their military prowess but a microscopic infectious pathogen that spread like wildfire through the close proximity of army barracks, naval ships, and trench dugouts. Epidemiologists trace the first case of influenza to Fort Riley, Kansas, in early March of that same year. The large mobilization and movement of American soldiers and other military personnel into the European war theater – which incidentally began later that same month – served as the impetus for the uncontrollable spread of the virus throughout US & other Allied bases and eventually to the opposing German side. Sadly, more US soldiers died of influenza that year than had died fighting in the entire Great War. One estimates suggests that 45,000 of the 53,400 American deaths during the war could be attributed to the virus itself.
I tell this story today not to sadden you on this solemn day but rather to remind us all that what our veterans have done to support the survival of our nation, if not the world, was no easy task. As we stand witness to another worldwide pandemic 102 years later, we should always remember that our soldiers deal with adversity both on and off the battlefield. The past in which they fought to secure our liberties was anything but ‘comfortable.’ I am grateful for their sacrifice, and I salute them for their service.
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