Here in the States,
Nov. 11th, 2002 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynit's Veterans' Day. We have the equivalent of Remembrance Day; we call it Memorial Day, and hold it back in May. It was originally for the Civil War dead only, but come the Great War they changed it to cover all those who died in America's wars. The eleventh of November, instead, was given to the living, or at least the ones who made it out of their battles alive.
I have to say it's a bit of a painful day for me. Nothing anywhere near the level![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mtr1966 has to deal with, but... when I was a little kid and someone first explained the concept of 'veteran' to me, they said it was someone who had been in a war, 'like your grandfather'. Grandpa's 82 years old now, and has Alzheimer's disease. Didn't recognize my mother the last time he saw her, and she's his first-born child. He remembers stuff at the oddest of times - for example, the last time I visited him I offered to make handmade pizza, and asked him if he wanted to help. He started remembering stuff about working in the kitchens of restaurants his family members owned as he was working on the dough. It was great, up until the next day when my presence in the house caught him by surprise; he'd forgotten I was staying there...
When I get to this day on the calendar I tend to think of him. And I think of how I read somewhere that thanks to the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, the original Samhain date of 31 October would fall on our 11 November, and of how close the day is to Dia de los Muertos and to All Souls' Day. And I start wondering whether this day oughtn't to be for the ones who fell after all, and Memorial Day be for the living veterans...
I don't know. I just don't.
I have to say it's a bit of a painful day for me. Nothing anywhere near the level
mtr1966 has to deal with, but... when I was a little kid and someone first explained the concept of 'veteran' to me, they said it was someone who had been in a war, 'like your grandfather'. Grandpa's 82 years old now, and has Alzheimer's disease. Didn't recognize my mother the last time he saw her, and she's his first-born child. He remembers stuff at the oddest of times - for example, the last time I visited him I offered to make handmade pizza, and asked him if he wanted to help. He started remembering stuff about working in the kitchens of restaurants his family members owned as he was working on the dough. It was great, up until the next day when my presence in the house caught him by surprise; he'd forgotten I was staying there...When I get to this day on the calendar I tend to think of him. And I think of how I read somewhere that thanks to the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, the original Samhain date of 31 October would fall on our 11 November, and of how close the day is to Dia de los Muertos and to All Souls' Day. And I start wondering whether this day oughtn't to be for the ones who fell after all, and Memorial Day be for the living veterans...
I don't know. I just don't.
