Veterans Day November 11, 2026
As always on this day I think about all the service members who fought in wars through the years.
Those who made it back home safely, as well as the millions who did not.
There is quite a legacy of military service in my father’s family. A small cemetery in West Virginia holds the bodies of Van Gilder men who served in the Army, Marines, and National Guard, going as far back as the Revolutionary War. When I visited the cemetery some years ago, it was a profound experience to walk the paths between the rows of graves. I read the headstones and thought about what combat must have been like for those men, and how it affected them the rest of their lives.
Nothing about war is pretty.
I don’t know if those Van Gilder men died after their service ended, or during combat, but I’ve been lucky not to lose a family member in more recent wars.
My father wasn’t able to join the Army following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, like so many of his peers did. He failed the physical because he was color blind, something he had mixed feelings about.
Not the physical problem, but the emotional one.
He was disappointed that he couldn’t do what he saw as his duty, yet at his core he was a pacifist. Those are such conflicting places to be in at the same time.
Some people think war can be a noble enterprise. However, when it comes down to the killing, and the trauma it causes for the person who has to pull the trigger, nobility gets lost.
Then there’s the trauma that those who grieve suffer.
Back in 2018, when the world was celebrating the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, Joby Warrick, national security reporter for the Washington Post, wrote a touching piece about his Great Uncle Foster B. Stevens, 83 Co. U.S. Marines. Warrick’s uncle died in the war in France mere days before the Armistice was signed.
“In the version of American history familiar to most schoolchildren, the U.S. experience in World War I was a nearly unblemished triumph, a moment when an energetic and powerful young nation rescued Europe’s democracies and inspired the world with its ideas, optimism and military might.
That vision bears little resemblance to the reality encountered by U.S. soldiers and Marines who landed in France’s muddy killing fields in the spring and summer of 1918. By every measure, the arriving Americans were ill-prepared for the kind of grinding, heavily mechanized war of attrition that Europe’s great armies had fought over the previous three years.”
Warrick went on to recount some of the history of the fighting between the Germans and French and American troops at a place called Belleau Wood, where the Germans had the high ground. His great uncle was one of the Marines who took part in the numerous attempts to gain control of the forested area, and after weeks of intense fighting and the loss of too many lives, the Marines prevailed.
“The battle became an instant legend, and it remains today among the Marine Corps’ most celebrated victories of all time. Two Marine units, including Foster’s 6th Regiment, were awarded the French Croix de Guerre, and the French government officially renamed Belleau Wood in honor of the Americans, calling it “Bois de la Brigade de Marine.”
“But the gains came at a horrific cost. During the first day’s charge into the woods, the two battalions suffered 1,087 killed and wounded, or about half the units’ strength, in what was then the largest single-day toll for the Marine Corps. The entire campaign, which included six major U.S. assaults and drew in units from two Army divisions, left nearly 10,000 Americans dead or wounded.
“The scale of the losses would grow larger in the weeks that followed. On July 19, the 6th Marine Regiment, including Foster’s 3rd Battalion, was again sent across open fields to attack heavy German fortifications at the French city of Soissons. The battle ultimately succeeded in halting Germany’s last great offensive of the war, but it was a bloodbath. As an official regimental history later put it, “The 6th Marines had the bitter experience of trying to overcome the enemy with little more than their bodies.”
I encourage you to click over and read the entire story at the Post. It’s a thoughtful, and well-researched, article, detailing a war and its impact that is remembered by few, but should not be forgotten.
Armistice Day, which later became known as Veterans Day here in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany. The agreement called for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front and took effect at 11:00 am—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.
Veterans Day is not as widely celebrated here in the States as Memorial Day, which honors all those service members killed in action. Still, today is worth at least a few thoughtful moments to remember, and acknowledge, military men and women who have served.
So, it is in that spirit of remembrance that I say thank you to some of the people in my family. First to my husband, Carl, who was in the Air Force. His years of service were between Korea and Vietnam, but he was called to active duty during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
My brother, Michael served in the Army during the Vietnam War, and thankfully came back in one piece, although he brought some trauma home with him.
My son, David, an armorer in the Marine Corp, served during Desert Storm. He avoided the actual conflict, but was sent to Iraq for cleanup afterward.
My daughter, Danielle, was a captain in the Army and avoided combat. However, some of the physical fitness requirements left her with long-term disabilities.
That’s all for me today, folks. I hope your week starts off well and continues on that path. If there is a Veteran in your life close enough to touch, give him or her a salute and a hug.