{"id":3670,"date":"2025-11-11T18:45:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=3670"},"modified":"2025-11-11T18:45:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:45:49","slug":"remembering-not-celebrating-veterans-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=3670","title":{"rendered":"Remembering, not Celebrating, Veteran’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I\u2019ll be honest, Veterans Day is not my favorite holiday. It feels inappropriate to say \u201cHappy Veterans Day\u201d the same way we say Happy Thanksgiving, Happy New Year, or Happy Valentine’s Day. What\u2019s happy about it? The veteran made it through a horrible time, likely suffered PTSD, and then once a year gets a parade?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I am anti-war, I understand why war occurs because grown men, historically, have struggled to use their words to solve disagreements. Yet I still pause today to think about the countless past conflicts that drew ordinary, decent people into sacrifices no one should ever have to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, an article from AMAC captured that tension beautifully. \u201cRemembering the World War I Generation This Veterans Day\u201d<\/strong><\/a> reminds us that time has nearly erased the memory of those who served in the Great War, young men and women who endured unimaginable hardship, then quietly returned home to rebuild their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, responses to that post weren\u2019t about remembrance at all, but about which politician dodged which draft. That, in itself, says everything about why wars persist. We\u2019re still fighting instead of mourning who\u2019s lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their generation is gone, but their stories are not. Some of those stories live on in the letters, journals, and memories families still hold. I was honored that my book, Thanks to the Yanks: World War I Letters from an Indiana Farm Boy to His Sweetheart<\/a>,<\/em> was featured in that piece. It follows one soldier\u2019s journey from the Indiana fields to the battlefields of France and back again offering a glimpse into the humanity behind the headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So today, I don\u2019t celebrate. I remember. I think about the courage it takes not just to fight, but to return, to heal, and to live. And I\u2019m grateful for every preserved letter and faded photograph that helps us remember those who did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019ll be honest, Veterans Day is not my favorite holiday. It feels inappropriate to say \u201cHappy Veterans Day\u201d the same way we say Happy Thanksgiving, Happy New Year, or Happy Valentine’s Day. What\u2019s happy about it? The veteran made it through a horrible time, likely suffered PTSD, and then once a year gets a parade? … Continue reading “Remembering, not Celebrating, Veteran’s Day”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1342,394,641],"class_list":["post-3670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-amac","tag-thanks-to-the-yanks","tag-veterans-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3673,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions\/3673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}