# Veterans Day or Armistice Day? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 11, 2004, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261 "2004-11-11T20:08:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261/1 "2004-11-11T20:08:36Z")
It’s Veterans Day. But part of me feels that renaming Armistice Day as Veteran’s Day was a mistake. Don’t get me wrong–I’m all for honoring veterans. My dad was career Navy and flew in the Korean War. My mother was also Navy, and my eldest brother just retired from the Navy a few years ago. So I’m not opposed to a day honoring veterans. I just think that Armistice Day had something special going for it. It wasn’t just the day WWI ended. More than that, it was the day both sides decided to simply _stop fighting_. The war had been fought to a stalemate, and though Germany was going to be crushed eventually, that day wasn’t yet at hand (unlike WWII, where the war ended only after the decisive defeat of the Axis forces). I think there’s something important to learn from that–that two bitter enemies, both who had lost an entire generation to the war, could just decide to stop fighting on one particular day; not because one side’s armies had been shattered, or its leader had died, or because one side had a new ultimate weapon. They stopped fighting because they wanted to. (Now, if we can just forget the Treaty of Paris that followed…) ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261/2 "2004-11-11T23:52:32Z")
I agree. It’s Armistice Day to me. And I didn’t like a whole bunch of additional Unknowns at Arlington either. People don’t seem to be able to just leave things alone. As Jimmy Durante said, “Everybody wants to get inta da act!” And politicians just have to make speeches and lay wreaths. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261/3 "2004-11-12T00:26:37Z")
It has always been Armistice Day for me, I suppose because that is what my father, a WWII veteran, and my grandfather, a WWI veteran, called it. It is after all the day the shooting stopped in 1918. On a related topic – why on earth wasn’t ONE Unknown Soldier sufficient? Now we have, what, four of them, and one monument is empty. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261/4 "2004-11-12T00:36:13Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > I agree. It’s Armistice Day to me. And I didn’t like a whole bunch of additional Unknowns at Arlington either. People don’t seem to be able to just leave things alone. As Jimmy Durante said, “Everybody wants to get inta da act!” And politicians just have to make speeches and lay wreaths. What we should do is not have any more wars. That would stop the over crowding of memorial space and the overloading of holidays ment to commemerate them. I’ve always called it Armistice Day because my parents did. I’m not sure why they did though, as everyone else I’ve met from their generation calls it Vetrans Day. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261/5 "2004-11-12T00:44:20Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > They stopped fighting because they wanted to. > > (Now, if we can just forget the Treaty of Paris that followed…) But we can’t. And isn’t there something to that? I mean, they stopped fighting “because they wanted to” but nothing was settled so as soon as the next generation was old enough they were at it again. Is that really so good an outcome? I dunno. It just seems kind of false to call it Armistice Day in the context of what followed. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261/6 "2004-11-12T00:48:27Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > But we can’t. And isn’t there something to that? I mean, they stopped fighting “because they wanted to” but nothing was settled so as soon as the next generation was old enough they were at it again. Is that really so good an outcome? > > I dunno. It just seems kind of false to call it Armistice Day in the context of what followed. I read that, and I instantly thought, “Yea, that’s exactly what they’re going to say in 80 years when talking about the day the fighting in Iraq stopped” ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/veterans-day-or-armistice-day/274261/7 "2004-11-12T01:50:53Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > I think there’s something important to learn from that–that two bitter enemies, both who had lost an entire generation to the war, could just decide to stop fighting on one particular day; not because one side’s armies had been shattered, or its leader had died, or because one side had a new ultimate weapon. They stopped fighting because they wanted to. Well, that, and the complete overthrow of Germany’s government by socialists.