This year we had Vietnam veterans Jeff Stein (who has been a professional journalist and author since the late 1960s) and Jay Snyder (who was a professional tennis umpire and the director of the U.S. Open after getting shot up while serving as an airborne infantry company commander in the 1st Cav). We had Iraq veteran Alex Horton (who this morning had a piece published in The Atlantic and is a real fast-burning up-and-comer, a student at Georgetown following an infantry tour in Iraq); Afghanistan veteran Lisa Barber (a medically retired USAF officer who was pretty badly worked over leading convoys during her tour). We also had Marine veteran Kyle Noe, a homeschooled former grunt sergeant who got out of the Corps just before 9/11, served as a CI agent in the FBI and who took part in the most recent bust of Russian spies in DC. And I also read, so we had a good mix.
This required slightly dressier look than the jeans and tweeds look from yesterday, but it's still autumn, so tweeds rule. I went with this:
I figured you can't go wrong with Duck Head khakis and Bass Weejuns. To this I added a yellow Lands End Sail Rigger OCBD. This is their old-school, heavyweight oxford cloth that takes about half an hour to iron, but is totally worth it. This shirt is substantial, like the old ways. I put on a maroon (not burgundy, but maroon like paratroopers' berets) knit tie with it. On top, I wore a tweedy Ralph Lauren houndstooth sport coat in some great Autumn colors. I also wore a Waltham A-17 military watch from the early 1950s and my Bronze Star Medal lapel pin.
Lest we forget, Veterans Day in the U.S. evolved from Armistice Day, marking the end of the First World War -- on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns in Europe fell silent. It's known as Remembrance Day in Canada, which I think is proper.
North of the 49th parallel, this poem is recited pretty much everywhere on this day. It's dated, to be sure, not a modern poem in any way. But it's still fitting today that we mark it here.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
--Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
Canadian Army Medical Corps
