When Ike Went Where the Founders Would Not

 

President Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation making "In God We Trust" the official National Motto.  He surrounded himself with clergy making sure to include a Muslim, a Rabbi, and Buddhist but significantly none of the Catholic prelates who had been the motto's driving force.  The non-observant casually religious President was clearly uneasy over the implications of what he was doing.

The crest of Cold War and Anti-Communist hysteria may have passed by July 30, 1956, but there was still plenty of residual energy.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, signed a bill that designated the words “In God We Trust” as the official Motto of the United States.  

The year before Congress acted to require that the phrase be put on all coins and bills. 

Of course, the U.S. had a de facto motto which had long been included on coins and currency—E Pluribus Unum, usually translated “out of many, one.”  That phrase was approved in 1792 for the Great Seal of the United States.  It did not satisfy fervid religionists. 

Indeed. the Great Seal itself, which was filled with Masonic and Deist symbolism without a hint Christian piety, had been a bone of contention since the first struggles over the proper role of religion in the Republic.  The largely Deist founders purposefully omitted any reference to God in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was silent on the subject except to prohibit Congress from the establishment of any religion or interfering with the religious observances of its citizens.  Practical men with a knowledge of history, they were concerned lest a favored religion or a defined heresy create civil discord and perhaps civil war.  

The Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum was on the ribbon in the national eagle's beak on the obverse of the Great Seal of the United States and was long considered the de facto motto of the United States.

Washington and Jefferson occasionally invoked a vague Deity, most often referred to Providence, Nature’s God, or sometimes the God of Creation, all common Deist constructions for an original moving force of the Universe.  They avoided terms like the Lord God which invoked the patriarchal deity of the Old Testament and never invoked Jesus Christ.  

John Adams, a true product of the Puritan tradition as it evolved eventually into Unitarianism, firmly believed that organized religion was necessary to constrain the “passions” of an innately sinful humanity.  Moreover, he was politically indebted for the support of the Black Legion—the clergy of the New England Standing Order—against “atheistic” Jeffersonian Republicanism.  Yet even he resisted considerable pressure to inject explicitly Christian prayer, practice, and symbolism into official use.

A complex battle between the evolving movements of Evangelical Protestantism and republican secularism see-sawed back and forth for the first decades of the nation’s existence.  Some compromises were unofficially reached, but on the whole, the government remained resolutely secular, and even Presidents were not expected to make personal religious declarations. 

During the crisis of the Civil War, however, President Abraham Lincoln needed the fervent support of the Protestant clergy, particularly its avidly abolitionist voices.  Not a personally “saved” Christian, and deeply influenced by the Founder’s secular Deism, Lincoln non-the-less was a student of the Bible as literature and was adept at echoing its cadences and invoking powerful Biblical language in his speeches.  But he was always being pressed by the clergy to make more overt religious statements.  

Secretary of the Treasury Samuel Chase put in God We Trust on a Civil War era 2 cent piece.

It was in this context that Lincoln called for national days of fasting and Thanksgiving.  He also undoubtedly approved when his Treasury Secretary, the devout Salmon P. Chase, first directed the Mint to inscribe the words “In God We Trust” on a two-cent coin issued in 1864.  The approbation of the preachers far outweighed the slight protests of Freethinkers.  Nonetheless, the idiom "not worth two cents" entered the language as a subtle protest to the inscription.

Over the next decades most—but not all—coins added the phrase as they were re-designed. 

Government issued Greenback currency, however, contained no religious declaration, just a practical promise to pay the bearer in specie upon demand. 

And so, the situation stayed until the dawn of the Cold War.  Then Catholics, who had long been reluctant to join with Protestants in any religious demands on the government because they assumed, quite rightly, that the Protestants would insist on narrow language that excluded Catholic practice, became particularly alarmed at the rise of “atheistic Communism” and the suppression of Catholic worship in the new Soviet Satellites in Eastern Europe.  Leading anti-Communist Prelates launched a campaign to require “In God We Trust” on currency as well as all coins and to make it an official motto. 

Federal authorities, who were eager to use those same Bishops to influence the heavily Catholic industrial working class against “Communist infiltration” of the labor movement, were more than glad to add religious arrows to their crusade against Reds. 

When leading Protestant Evangelicals fell into line, the movement in Congress became irresistible even for those who were squeamish.  What Congressman wanted to be painted as voting against God? 

Controversy over the motto and its use on currency and coins has never gone away.  Church and state separation advocates, civil libertarians, and increasingly vocal atheist activists have repeatedly challenged the motto and its use on coins and currency in court.  And just as routinely have lost. 

In the case of Aronow v. United States in 1970, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, “It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency ‘In God We Trust’ has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise.”  The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.  In another case The Supreme Court upheld the motto in because it has “lost through rote repetition any significant religious content.”  

Increasingly vocal and organized atheists have become the leading voice for protesting In God We Trust but their atheism may have entrenched support among the MAGA crowd and Christian Denomonists.

With public support of continued use of the motto on coins and currency standing at 90% in a 2003 Gallup Poll it does not appear that the phrase will be going away any time soon.

Fighting Nazism On Normandy Beaches 82 Years Ago was the Biggest Undertaking in the History of the World

 Note—Ever relevant as we face domestic Nazis, Fascists, and White Supremacists at home and the Russian invasion of Ukraine reminds us that naked aggression and war crimes are no longer unthinkable in Europe today.  We revisit this annual reminder.

When it comes to World War II, certain dates are etched indelibly into the American consciousness, even occasionally piercing the historical unawareness of young people now generations removed from the events.  December 7, Pearl Harbor Day is one.  August 6 when the U.S. dropped the first Atomic Bomb making the end of the war with Japan inevitable is another.

So is June 6, known without further explanation as D-Day.

On June 6, 1944 the Allies invaded Nazi occupied France under the overall command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is the iconic event of World War II in the American memory. 

 

 American troops pinned down on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

It was the largest coordinated movement of men, arms, and materiel in history and had to be conducted in enough secrecy to surprise the Germans who had at least 55 divisions in France while the Allied effort could only put 8 ashore to secure the beachhead on the first day.

Nearly 2 million soldiers, sailors, and airmen were involved in the total Operation Overlord, including those landed after the first day.  195,000 Naval personnel manned 6,039 vessels including 1,200 warships and 15 hospital ships.  The United States alone shipped 7 million tons of supplies, 14 billion pounds of material including 448,000 tons of ammunition.

Air operations in support of D-Day, which began in April, included 14,000 missions with a loss of 2000 aircraft and 12,000 airmen before the landing.  127 planes were lost on D-Day alone.

 

 British airborne troops loading a glider for their mission to be dropped behind the German beach defenses and secure roads and bridges inland.

On June 6th U.S. casualties were reported as 6,603 including 1,465 dead.  While these are awful numbers, there were several Civil War battles with greater dead.  The Soviets suffered more single day casualties four or five times.  And losses per men engaged in some Pacific landings were more than 5 times as high.  Total allied casualties that day among U.S., British, Canadian, Free French, and Polish troops are estimated to be in excess of 10,000.  German losses are less well documented but are estimated between four and nine thousand. 

After the beachhead was secured hundreds of thousands of men and tons of supplies landed across those sands because the Allies did not control any deep-water French port for weeks.  By July 14 over a million men had come ashore. 

 

 A fraction of the cost--American dead at the water line on Omaha Beach.

But heavy German resistance confined the invaders to a small zone around the landing beaches until a breakout began on July 25. 

Once free, the Allied advanced across France was remarkably swift.  Despite setbacks like the Battle of the Bulge in December and delays in getting a bridgehead across the Rhine into the German heartland, by the following April British and American units from the west met up with Soviet troops from the east.  Within a few days of that Hitler committed suicide, Berlin fell, and the German High Command surrendered unconditionally. 

 

 U.S. Army Air Force B-26 Marauder medium bombers fly over the invasion fleet to pound German positions.

It has been my honor to know several men who either fought on D-Day or who landed on the Normandy beaches over the next few days.  One of them was my late father-in-law, Art Brady. 

 

Centenarian vets returning for D-Day ceremonies were greeted by French school children at the Deauville, Normandy airport.

All of them are gone now.  Within a few years the last of the veterans of D-Day will go the way of the ghosts of Gettysburg and Belleau Wood.  The latter battle, coincidently, reached its peak on another June 6 in 1918 when U.S. Marines suffered their worst single day losses in history.

So much war.  So much grief.

The Nazi Surrender Ended Fighting in Europe but Not the World War

A French post card depicting the German surrender at Reims from a painting by Lucien Jonas for the Musee de l' Armee in Paris.

On May 7, 1945 representatives of the German High Command signed articles of unconditional surrender to the Allies at a French school house in Reims used as the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF). 

It was apparent for weeks that the German position was hopeless.  Pressed on all sides, the Soviets were about to take Berlin when Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker leaving Grand Admiral Karl Donitz as his successor as President of the Reich.  Dönitz realized his only duty was ending the war as quickly as possible on the best possible terms for Germany.  He immediately began back-channel negotiations. 

Meanwhile, German armies began surrendering regionally.  German forces in Italy lay down arms on May 1.  Berlin surrendered on May 2 and two separate armies north of Berlin capitulated. 

On May 4 Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of all German forces in Holland, Northern Germany, Denmark and all naval forces in the area.  General Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedberg, acting on orders from Dönitz initially offered surrender to Western allies alone leaving the option for his troops to turn around to face the Russians.  Montgomery coldly refused leaving the Germans no other choice by surrender. 

The same day troops in Bavaria, the state whose mountains were once considered as a fallback position for a drawn-out campaign of guerilla resistance, surrendered.  From the Channel Islands—held by Germany even after the Normandy Invasion—to Prague one after another German forces capitulated. 

Dönitz was informed that any surrender had to be conducted by a representative of the German High Command.  This was because the Allies did not want a repeat of the Armistice of the First World War which was signed by the government, not the military leading to the charge that the Army had been “stabbed in the back,” a key propaganda point when Germany re-armed. 

On May 6 Dönitz dispatched Colonel General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the German General Staff to Reims with orders to offer surrender to Western forces only—exactly the same terms turned down my Montgomery two days earlier.  Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower harshly excoriated Jodl and bluntly demanded unconditional surrender to all allies or face continued prosecution of the war.  Informed of the terms, Dönitz wired his consent.  

Celebrating after the German surrender at Reims were General Ivan Susloparov, General Walter Bedell Smith, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Royal Air Force Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder.

At 2:41 local time Jodl signed the Instrument of Surrender.  Eisenhower pointedly and as an intended snub did not personally accept or sign for the Allies assigning his Chief of Staff, the brusque General Walter Bedell Smith, to be principal signer for the Allies.  Also signing was General Ivan Susloparov, Soviet liaison to SHAEF.  Susloparov signed before he could get full authorization from his government so it was understood that a second surrender would be signed with the Soviets on the Eastern front.  French Major General François Sevez signed as the official witness. 

The surrender of all hostile forces was set for May 8, 11:01 pm Central European Time.  Shortly after midnight on May 8 the second surrender signing was conducted at the seat of the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin.  Marshal Georgy Zhukov, of the Soviet High Command was the principal Allied signatory and was joined by British Air Chief Marshal Arthur William Tedder, as Deputy Supreme Commander SHAEF. American Lt. General Carl Spaz, Commander of United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe; and General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny of the First French Army were witnesses.  Signing for the Germans were Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy; Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff of the Luftwaffe; and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces also signing on behalf of the Army.  The signing was completed fifteen minutes after midnight. 

By the terms signed in Rheims, fighting had already ceased just over an hour earlier.

When the news of the surrender broke there were joyous street celebrations like this one in London.

News of the end of the war in Europe broke on May 8, with spontaneous celebrations erupting across Europe and North America.  Street celebrations in Britain and France were especially jubilant.

President Harry Truman announced the end of the war in a somber broadcast with the words that “Flags of Freedom fly all over Europe today,” while reminding listeners that the war against Japan continued.  The knowledge that a long bloody war against Japan might still stretch ahead with American troops taking most of the casualties in a final assault against the home islands somewhat restrained celebrations in this country.

This knowledge also haunted many allied troops in Europe, who knew that they might be shipped to the Pacific.  Indeed, some Air Force and Naval units were almost immediately re-directed and some of the crack U.S. Airborne, Infantry, and Armored divisions which had been in the thick of fighting for months were slated for re-assignment, as were many individual G.I.s whose units would be dissolved.  

Isolated German units continued to surrender for about a week.

Not all fighting ended on May 8. Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner of the Army Group Centre fought on in Austria and Czechoslovakia, but the Soviets turned all of their considerable might against him and by May 15 ceased all offensive operations with mop up in Czechoslovakia completed. 

The last battle in the war took place on May 15 in Slovenia and the last shots were fired on the Dutch island of Texel where Ukrainian prisoners of war had rebelled against the German occupiers on April 5 and kept up a guerilla campaign against them.  The German garrison had simply been forgotten in the shuffle and was afraid if they surrendered to the Ukrainians they would be executed en masse.

A final bit of business was dissolving the German Government under Dönitz.  The Allies had concentrated so hard on getting the armed forces to lay down their arms that they had neglected to demand that civil authority be transferred to them.  Worse, they had neglected to outline how a military occupation would work.  On May 28 a rather junior British officer was dispatched to the town of Flensburg to read to Dönitz Eisenhower’s edict dissolving the government and arresting all of its members.

In the meantime, local commanders took charge where they were.  On June 9 the Allies officially signed a Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers taking over civil authority at all levels in occupied Germany. 

Details of the shape of the occupation—and of the post war world—were agreed to at the Potsdam Conference by Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced after this agreement was reached at the Conference by Clement Attlee when Churchill stunningly suffered an election loss) and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. The agreement divided Germany, and its capital of Berlin in zones of Allied control. 

On December 13, 1946 President Truman finally declared that hostilities between the United States and Germany had ceased. 

Yet the war was not technically over.  Even after the establishment of the German Federal Republic (West Germany) as a U.S. ally and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1949, the U.S. felt it needed the fiction of an official state of war to maintain authority for stationing troops in Germany. 

Congress adopted a resolution declaring a formal end to hostilities in 1951.  Official occupation continued until 1955 when the West German government was given full sovereignty.  

The less dramatic and nearly forgotten final official end to World War II with the signing of Treaty on the Final Settlement with respect to Germany in 1990.  Seen Left to right:  Roland Dumas (France), Eduard Shevardnadze (USSR), James Baker (USA), Mikhail Gorbachev (USSR), Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FRG), Lothar de Maizière (GDR) and Douglas Hurd (United Kingdom). 

In September 1990, more than 45 years after the surrender the Four Powers—the U.S., Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R—finally signed a Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany with both German Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic which allowed the two German states to unite, which they did on October 3, 1990.  The war was finally, officially over. 

An Identity Crisis for a National Holliday—Armistice or Veterans Day

  

Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, First Sea Lord, and Marshal Ferdinand Foch (standing), the French leader of the Allied forces,  accept the German surrender ending fighting in the Great War. 

Note:  A return of a semi-regular post.  But it will be new and news to some of you.

11/11/11.  That’s how Americans remembered the Armistice that went into effect on November 11, 1918 at 11 a.m. local time in France ending hostilities on the Western Front in what was up to that time the most catastrophically bloody war in history.  The German High Command signed the armistice just two days after revolutionaries in Berlin overthrew Kaiser Wilhelm and proclaimed a Republic. The shooting part of the Great War was over.  It would not officially end until the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.

President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the day as Armistice Day, an occasion for national Thanksgiving and prayer.  Americans and the world were thankful, but they were more in the mood for wild celebration that day than for sober reflection and prayer.  From the great cities of Europe to the simplest of rural American villages spontaneous celebrations erupted in the streets.

  

These Doughboys may never have made it to the Front, but had plenty to celebrate in an impromptu New York City parade celebrating the Armistice on November 11, 1918. 

By the time of the first anniversary most Allied nations had officially adopted November 11 as a holiday.  In Britain, Canada, and other Commonwealth Countries it is called Remembrance Day or Poppy Day for the red paper flowers almost universally worn then. In the United States, where holiday proclamations were traditionally left to the states, only a handful had yet designated a formal holiday.  But with troops only recently come home, cities and towns across the country marked the day with parades and speeches.

  

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. issued the call for the Paris Caucus where Officers and enlisted men still in France in May 1919 laid the groundwork for the establishment of the American Legion.

The spread of the day as an official holiday was promoted by veterans’ organizations.  One such organization was envisioned by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. as a group analogous to the Grand Army of the Republic, the organization of Civil War Veterans which dominated American public life for more than 50 years.  Within days of the Armistice Roosevelt gathered officers in Paris to plan for the organization.  In March 1919 the Paris Caucus of over 1000 officers and enlisted men adopted a temporary constitution and the name American Legion.  Congress granted the Legion a charter in September and a founding convention was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota over three days that coincided with the 1919 Armistice celebrations.

Unlike the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), an existing organization of Spanish Civil War, Philippine Insurrection, Boxer Rebellion, and Mexican Expeditionary veterans which began accepting Great War veterans into their existing network of Posts, the American Legion had a distinct ideological tone.  From the beginning, its leadership was in ultra-conservative hands, and some were eager to mobilize the ranks in campaigns against the perceived Red Menace of the post war period.  Legion officers often encouraged their members to act as organized strike breakers.

On that same Armistice Day in 1919, an American Legion parade in Centralia, Washington, the heart of lumber country and long running labor strife, broke ranks on a pre-arranged signal and attacked the local hall of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). 

 

The American  Legion  in Centralia, Washington parading on Armistice Day 1919 moments before they  broke ranks to attack the IWW Hall. 

Wobblies in the hall opened fire in self defense as the Legionaries tried to charge up the stairs.  Four Legionaries were killed in the attack and several others were wounded inside the hall in a confusing melee before most of the union men were disarmed.  Wesley Everest, himself a veteran and in uniform, escaped although wounded and was chased down to the river where he shot two or more of his pursuers before being overwhelmed.   

That night a mob of Legionaries, with the complicity of authorities, seized the wounded Everest from his jail cell, dragged him behind an automobile, castrated him, and hung him from a railroad bridge.  Several IWW members including those captured in the hall and others tracked down by possies in a massive man hunt were put on trial.  Eight Wobblies were convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to long prison terms.  No Legionnaires were charged in the initial assault.

 

President Warren G. Harding, standing left at the entombment of the Unknown Soldier on Armistice Day 1921.  He also proclaimed a one-time Federal Holiday for the occasion. 

When the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated on Armistice Day 1921, a onetime Federal Holiday was declared.  In 1926 a Congressional Resolution proclaimed the “recurring anniversary of should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations” and that the President should issue an annual proclamation calling for the observance of Armistice Day.  It still fell short of the declaration of a Federal holiday.  At the time 27 states had official observances.  Spread of the holiday, although popular with the public, was strongly opposed by business interests.

Although the rival veterans’ organizations both campaigned for the establishment of Armistice Day as an official Holliday and supported wounded veterans, their emphasis, and political agenda, was clearly different.  The VFW was more interested in obtaining benefits and support for veterans while the Legion promoted respect for the military and patriotism.  The VFW spearheaded the campaigns that resulted in the first Veteran medical benefits, vocational training for wounded veterans, the establishment of the Veteran’s Bureau, and an act of Congress to pay Great War veterans a Bonus in 1942. 

When the Depression hit veterans especially hard, the VFW endorsed efforts to get Congress to authorize an early payment of the promised Bonus.  Although not officially supporters of the Bonus March on Washington in 1932, they were outraged when troops under General Douglas MacArthur violently dispersed the demonstrators and destroyed their camp.  The Legion, on the other hand, supported the Army and painted the Bonus Marchers as Communists.

 

Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, twice a Medal of Honor winner, was recruited by business leaders and high American Legion officials to be the "Man on a White Horse" to front a coup d'etat overthrowing Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.  Instead, he exposed the plot to Congress. 

In the early days of the Franklin Roosevelt administration some Legion leaders were involved in the aborted plot to stage a military coup against the President and replace him with a military Man on a White Horse.  They planned to use legion members as Italian Fascists and German Nazis had used their Black and Brown Shirts, largely drawn from the ranks of their own veterans.  The plot was exposed when an officer who was offered the titular role military savior, Marine Corps General Smedley Butler publicly exposed the cabal.  The plot was averted but its leaders were so powerful that none were ever charged or tried for treason.  

Finally, the issue was settled when on June 4, 1954 with a whole new crop of veterans from the Korean War already coming home, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Act of Congress that transformed Armistice Day into Veterans Day.

 

After signing legislation creating the official new Federal Veteran's Day holiday, President Dwight D. Eisenhower posed with leaders of the American Legion, left, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, right. Representative Edwin Rees of Kansas, the sponsor of  the legislation is to the immediate left of Ike. 

Traditionalists still grumbled.  But they were really given something to complain about in 1968 when Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which sought to ensure three-day weekends for Federal employees and to encourage tourism and travel by celebrating four national holidays, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day on Mondays.  Federal Veterans Day was moved to the last Monday in October.  When the first observance under the new scheme was held on October 21, 1971 the public was outraged and most states refused to go along, maintaining November 11 as state holidays.  In many states that meant two observances—and competing claims for paid holidays by workers in private industry covered by labor contracts.  Businesses hated that. 

Bowing to public pressure, President Gerald Ford signed a new law returning the observation of Veterans Day to November 11 beginning in 1978. If November 11 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the Federal government observes the holiday on the previous Friday or following Monday.

In recent years mid-week observance of Veterans Day has lowered its public profile.  Fewer and fewer cities and towns held Veterans Day parades.  Participation in local commemorations faded as first the World War I veterans passed and then the ranks of World War II and Korean Veterans shrank.  Veterans of the unpopular Vietnam War often felt unwelcome in Legion and VFW posts and were stigmatized by the public as troubled and possibly dangerous.

Veterans organizations became outraged as a wide-spread movement to keep kids in school resulted in Veterans Day being dropped as a school holiday in many places.  Ironically, with schools in session and many state legislatures mandating veteran curricula on that day, the holiday may have gotten a boost in interest among students who previously would have just enjoyed a day away from studies.

Traditionalists still grumbled.  But they were really given something to complain about in 1968 when Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which sought to ensure three-day weekends for Federal employees and to encourage tourism and travel by celebrating four national holidays, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day on Mondays.  Federal Veterans Day was moved to the last Monday in October.  When the first observance under the new scheme was held on October 21, 1971 the public was outraged and most states refused to go along, maintaining November 11 as state holidays.  In many states that meant two observances—and competing claims for paid holidays by workers in private industry covered by labor contracts.  Businesses hated that. 

 

Younger Vets have replaced aging World War II, Korean, and Vietnam vets in parades like this pre-pandemic one in New York City.   

The long, lingering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan produced new rounds of veterans, many of them National Guardsmen and Reservists, older soldiers with deep roots in their home communities.  They are giving the day new meaning.

 

Donald Trump finally got his cherished military parade in Washington not on Veterans Day, but on his own birthday.  Crowds were sparse and dwarfed by nation-wide No Kings protests nation wide.  

Unfortunately, that determination was ignored by Donald Trump who famously yearned to stage an epic military parade including tanks and missiles to roll by a reviewing stand like observances in France—and Russia.  That wild dream was hosed down by the almost unanimous opposition of military leaders, technical difficulties, and the enormous expense.  In his second Term Trump finally got his parade not on Veterans Day but conveniently on his birthday.  It turned out to be a spectacular and embarrassing failure.