Commemorating A Day of Peace

AT THE SENIOR CENTER, I have been accorded a great honor. I have been asked to briefly speak at a ceremon commemorating Veteran's Day. Apparently, I am a substitute for the center's director, who it so happens will be out of the building on that day, helping train a new employee in the skills needed for "Meals On wheels", most primary of which is of course knowledge of the delivery route. Strangely, thi little ceremony at the senior center will take place on Wednesday, November 8,three days before the actual holiday. The reason is that Veteran's Day this year falls on a Saturday, and the Senior Center is closed Friday, in order to honor Veteran's Day and to secure for the staff members that most prized of prizes; a three day holiday. why the ceremony will not be taking place on Thursday is unclear, perhaps because Wednesday is always a much better attended day than Thursday at the senior center. Each day at the center, year round, rain or shine, we have lunch at eleven thirty, which is preceeded by a group recitation of the Pledge of Allegience and a prayer, presumably to the Christian biblical God. For the ceremony, I shall be introduced by the pledge and prayer leader, will make my few moments worth of remarks, and on we shall proceed to the pledge, the prayer, and lunch. What I plan to say, roughly, is this: World War One, like all wars, was so horrible, such a nightmare, that the people effected by it invented psychological ways to deal with it. In World War One, they decided that to make the war meaningful, and their sacrifices meaningful, that the war would be the last war ever, or, as they called it "the war to end all wars. This became its official name,so popular was it: "the war to end all wars"....Well, we can see how that turned out....When it ended, they decided to turn the end of it into a national holiday, a day to celebrate the end of the war, the peace treaty or armistice which ended it,the new holiday to be called "Armistice Day". A celebration of peace, and of the end of all war, forever and ever. Eventually Armistice Day became "Veteran's Day", a holiday to honor all American military veterans from all wars and all times of peace, to honor every Amerian who ever put on a uniform and served in the armed forces. And that is good, that is as it should be. So once gain we honor our veterans. But I ask you to do one more thing: to never forget that th eoriginal name of this hiliday was "Armistice Day", and that it was created to honor an commenorate not war nor those who make wars and fight in wars, but rather, to honor and commomerate peace. Let us always remember and cherish the actual, original name and meaning of this sacred holiday; the celebration of peace. Because I am sure that every veteran who ever served in any armed service in any period of history or time, for any country would agree; the ultimte gola of the people who serve in the military is the establisment and perpetuation of peace. Surely, we can say that every American who ever served in the armed forces of the United States did so in order to help create and maintain peace, that all Americans can live in peace and security in their pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Let us always cherish Veteran's Day as a day honoring peace." That should only take a minute or so, and I will then ask all the veterans in the room to please stand up and be recognized.