My first thought about the date 11-11-11 was, “Oh, what lovely prime numbers!”  But I digress…

Many Americans know that Veterans’ Day began as something different.  First, it was Armistice Day, invented to celebrate the end of The Great War, supposedly at the 11^th minute of the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month 93 years ago in 1918.  I lately had the thrill of discovering what that event meant to one who had lived at the time.

I read a letter from my grandfather, Is Agree (a man whose name is two verbs!), written to his then sweetheart, my future grandmother, Mary Hurwitz (he wrote Marie) from his home in Astoria, NY to her at her cousins’ home “in the mountains” where she was “taking a cure”.  After several lines of mundane courtship comment, he wrote the following:

“Just as I have ended the above paragraph, there came the sound of factory and steamer sirens blowing loud enough to be heard I believe all over the country.  Perhaps you are hearing them now, for surely if there is any kind of a siren in your locality it has joined the rest in proclaiming the advent of peace.

If you have read this morning’s newspaper you know that Marshal Foch was to hand over the terms of the Allies for an armistice to the German mission sent for that purpose and the blowing of these sirens is to announce that the terms of the Allies were accepted by Germany.

Think, imagine if you can the meaning of this announcement.  How many tears of joy will this announcement bring forth in the eyes of the millions of Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers and Sweethearts of the fighting men all over the world.  How many more tears of sorrow and grief will this bring forth from the eyes of those who have had the misfortune to have contributed the life of one who was dear to them, to the death toll that this greatest international human butchery called war, has extracted.  And how many hearts all over the world will throb with hope that, with the passing of these clouds of fomented hatred and strife, there will appear a new horizon.  A horizon that will disclose signs of the coming of a freer and better world.  A world in which there will be no room for strife to attain things at the expense of others, no room for hatred both individual and national.”

Here, the writing is interrupted, continuing below the entry of the following days’ date.

“The above I had written you yesterday and, I would have undoubtedly finished this letter yesterday if not for the extraordinary rush on the sale of American flags, which had caused me to lay this letter aside until now.  Now I am thinking of whether I should send it to you or not.  The news of yesterday has been reported false and although it is probable that in a few days we will hear the same news again and this time well confirmed, yet what I have written above seems out of place…”

Fortunately, he did finish the letter (with more mundane matters) and send it.  It was written on November 7 and 8, 1918.

I came away from my encounter with this letter thinking:

For a 24 year-old who had been speaking English for barely half his life, my Grandpa was eloquent!

Why is the story of the “false” announcement of peace never related in our histories, when it clearly had a huge impact on the people who heard it

Was Grandpa’s (and others’) joy at the final announcement of the peace when it did come diminished by this experience, as I suspect from reading this it may have been?

And today I reflect.  The Great War, of course, gave way to a greater one.  And on and on and on.  The progress of the ideals held a century ago and the hopes they created has been fitful, and humanity has never overcome its propensity for butchery.  So this Armistice Day, in memory of my grandfather, who wasn’t a veteran, and my father, who was; and in tribute to those who lived and those who died, those who won and those who lost, those who fought and those who refused to fight; I reiterate my grandfather’s hope for an end to war.