The 11th Hour, of the 11th Day, of the 11th Month

Comments on this entry are closed.

• Dan Patterson November 11, 2020, 8:37 AM

  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

  ∞
• ghostsniper November 11, 2020, 9:00 AM

  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.

  ∞
• Blackwing1 November 11, 2020, 9:04 AM

  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.

  ∞
• Skorpion November 11, 2020, 10:16 AM

  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.

  ∞
• Anne November 11, 2020, 11:36 AM

  Dear Skorpion
  We in this house share “Deep, abiding respect to all veterans on this day.”

  ∞
• Anonymous November 11, 2020, 1:44 PM

  Only Europeans would do that. You think Africans or Asians or native Americans will do that?

  ∞
• TC November 11, 2020, 2:33 PM

  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.

  ∞
• CA November 11, 2020, 2:39 PM

  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

  ∞
• Joe Krill November 11, 2020, 3:41 PM

  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.

  ∞
• Kevin in PA November 11, 2020, 3:46 PM

  It was, “the war to end all wars”, they said.

  ∞
• Elmo November 11, 2020, 6:04 PM

  I marvel at his work.
  And yet today Norman Rockwell would be branded by the Left as being a White Supremacist, among other things.

  ∞
• Casey Klahn November 11, 2020, 7:32 PM

  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.

  ∞
• John The River November 12, 2020, 6:28 AM

  If Rickenbacker has a memorial anywhere, I’m sure that the young leftists will demand it be torn down.

  For ‘reasons’.

  ∞
• Jake November 13, 2020, 1:38 PM

  “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

  ∞