Armistice Day

I had a unique experience yesterday at work and then I had it again.

In a casual conversation with a co-worker about my recent absence from the workplace a reference was made to the fact that we would all be absent today in observance of Veterans' Day. And he said, "By the way, thank you."

Never, ever, happened to me before.

And then later in the day I was on the phone with the boss. His daughter is in the Army and he has become a bit sensitized on the subject and he said, "By the way, thank you."

I know what unique means and the first time was unique. The second time moves the whole thing towards commonplace.

So I am a veteran and I deserve the day off. I scrounged around this morning in a couple of seldom looked into spots in the house and came up with a couple of pictures. I have a scanner, so . . .

This is Private Miller, standing at his locker in Basic Training at Fort Benning, Georgia.That would have to be October 1969.

This is Specialist Miller, sitting on his bunk in the barracks at the United States Army Depot, Cam Ranh Bay, Republic of South Vietnam.That's fairly early in my time in Hell, I am guessing June or July 1970. I wish I still had that poster.

I took typing in 9th grade and in the final exam was the second fastest typist in the class. In my prime I could do about 75 words per minute. The Army recognized this talent and made me into a clerk. I was also a pretty good shot but that skill was not as valued as my typing skill by the huge bureaucracy that was and is the military. For this I have always been grateful. I was a clerk in a large military supply depot.

Armistice Day is on the anniversary of the symbolic end of World War I on November 11, 1918. The observance commemorates the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, for most, the end of the war. In accordance with the armistice agreement, the cease fire took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning, the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month". I have seen it reported that many who were present that morning when silence fell on the battlefield considered the silence to be the voice of god speaking clearly to mankind.