The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

I would like to take a few minutes today to stop our regular activities and think about all those who have offered to give their lives or willing to put their life on the line in order to protect our country and defend our freedoms. From the dough-boys in the trenches of WWI, to the Greatest Generation of WWII, to those that fought courageously and valiant efforts of Korea and Vietnam, to our current generation of soldiers that have been involved in the first Gulf War and are now stationed here or abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan

From The Nation:

On the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th month, the guns of World War I fell silent. And a war that should never have been fought – arguably by anyone, certainly by Americans – was done.

Americans who know their history celebrate Veterans Day not to honor war, but to recognize the soldiers who died and the soldiers who survived the wars of the past – and, hopefully, to ponder the futility of abandoning George Washington's advice to avoid the entangling alliances of distant continents and the mortal combats of the kings and conquerers who intrigues Americans rejected when the United States revolted against monarchy, colonialism and the madness of empire.

From Don Russel in the Stamford Advocate

"The eleventh hour of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month" -- that was the way Armistice Day was described to us in school and at home -- the time and the day the Germans surrendered to the Allies of World War I.

At 11 a.m. we knew the time by blasts from the factory whistle at Yale and Towne. One could hear the Yale and Towne whistle in every corner of Stamford. It was the community signal for snow days -- no school, and other emergencies. But on this day it was the signal that everything stopped. Drivers emerged from cars and stood at attention facing east for three minutes. A brief blast from the whistle signaled people that the Stamford community parade was starting its line of march from what is now Washington Boulevard to Atlantic Street, past Old Town Hall to St. John's Park for the annual ceremony of remembrance. I remember from my childhood some of the fiery speeches by leaders and veterans of what was called "The Great War," which indeed it was. Pictures of Doughboys (the common name for soldiers in muddy damp trenches waiting to "go over the top" into battle and for most, sure death) were on the front pages of most newspapers.