The 11th Hour, of the 11th Day, of the 11th Month
HT 
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God’s last Put out the light was spoken.
— Robert Frost
Gerard Van der Leun
April is over. May moon.
How many more for my regard,
hundreds, a handful?
Better not trouble the dark water due north of north.
Better to concentrate on something close, something small.
This stick, for instance. This word.
–Charles Wright
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
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Rickenbaker’s autobiography is well worth your time.
As is this re-creation of sound ranging equipment recording the cessation of firing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTA10n1Ztqo
Awhile ago I was standing in the kitchen and my wife came in and said, “Look, (pointing at the clock) it’s 11:11…on 11/11!” I said, “Yay, it’s historical! Take a picture!” Then we laffed and laffed and laffed.
Eddie R. noted after he landed that there were new bullet holes in his plane…during his flight to the front that day, before the Armistice, the Germans were still firing at him.
It should have happened four years earlier, with the troops of both sides returning home to string up the politicians, bankers, and arms merchants that started and perpetuated that pointless mass-slaughter.
Deep, abiding respect to all veterans on this day.
Dear Skorpion
We in this house share “Deep, abiding respect to all veterans on this day.”
Only Europeans would do that. You think Africans or Asians or native Americans will do that?
The Great War killed Europe demographically and intellectually, IMHO. The best and brightest of their generations were slaughtered in those fields, and to ensure the death of Europe, they repeated it twenty years later. The artists, writers, scientists, inventors, musicians; those that would’ve led Europe into the 40’s and 50’s as some of the best of the world, instead turned to organic matter.
From the old shop – my grandfather’s Armistice Day, near Montfaucon:
http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2010/11/november-11th.html
“Deep, abiding respect to all veterans on this day.”
Indeed.
And for those interested, do read this recent history; what happened to the 79th Division (my grandfather’s unit) was criminal, and Pershing did himself no honor by aiding the cover-up:
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Betrayal-at-Little-Gibraltar/William-Walker/9781501117916
Skorpion, You are spot on. And if you dig a little deeper you will find that it is and has been one family that has financed all sides. TC, you eloquently stated an ugly truth.
It was, “the war to end all wars”, they said.
I marvel at his work.
And yet today Norman Rockwell would be branded by the Left as being a White Supremacist, among other things.
Norman Rockwell abides. Rifles rise dynamically; soldiers abut and defend. The native colors of the uniforms rise up in the pageant of our military past, but these aren’t regulars – they are American men. The militia. Eyes fixed and dangerous.
There is nothing “correct”, polite or yielding about this painting. Like the Bill of Rights, it spells out the fact that we are at war. Have you read the Bill of Rights? It has teeth and it ain’t friendly.
World War I. I read Rickenbacker’s book, but it was so long ago and I completely forgot that bird’s eye view of the breakout of peace. Oh, that war was a waste, was it? Fuck off, mate! World War I was the event that accompanied and sealed the end of the monarchies. Did the Bilderburgs do that? The Illuminaughty? Uhhh, I doubt it, Slick.
We are living critical history as we speak. Do try to keep up, Bueller.
Army National Guard. Infantry Captain. 1975-1985.
If Rickenbacker has a memorial anywhere, I’m sure that the young leftists will demand it be torn down.
For ‘reasons’.
“Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.”
George Orwell