Happy Armistice Day

Hope you guys had a happy Armistice Day everyone. By the time you read this in print it would have come and gone. I am sure if you attended a Veterans Day celebration Thursday and called it Armistice Day you probably received some odd looks.

Armistice Day commemorates the final day of World War I, where a German official signed an armistice in France to caused a much needed cease fire on Nov. 11, 1918.

After World War II, Armistice Day would eventually became Veterans Day in America. France and Belgium are the main countries where the day is still celebrated as Armistice Day.

So why am I talking about Armistice Day? During the 2020 Pandemic, many folks in my age bracket were saying it was the worse year of their lives. It hit me, generations who came before would point to many years far worse than 2020. The years in World War I are a prime example. During the shutdown, while folks were watching “Tiger King” for the 10th time I stumbled upon some World War I documentaries. That is what happens when there are no sports and you can’t go anywhere.

I quickly learned that I did not know much about the First World War.

Veterans Day is an important day for obvious reasons but the significance of Armistice Day has been buried. I bet if you ask people under 40 a World War I question they will just confuse it with World War II. That’s not a slight at our education system as much as how difficult the First World War is to understand a century later.

I have now seen five or so documentaries on World War I the past 20 months which fueled me to do some research. Plenty of lives were saved because of Armistice Day as the war could have kept going another year. A good number of Americans would have been killed and their descendants never would have existed. I would take 2020 and 2021 over 1917 and 1918 with ease. Check out some World War I documentaries to learn why.

Nathan is the Sports Editor of the Greene County Daily World and can be reached at npacegcdw@gmail.com. His “Low Budget Sports Show” airs weekly on Facebook Live.