[In honors of Veterans Day, this
week’s series has AmericanStudied veteran figures, histores, and stories.
Leading up to this crowd-sourced post on all things veterans and Veterans
Day—add your own stories and connections in comments, please!]
Irene
Martyniuk writes, “I’m glad you are examining Veteran’s Day this week. While it has
been commercialized, politicized, imagined, re-imagined, and everything else,
there is something that is simply shivering when you visit Arlington and watch
the changing of the guard at the Tomb of
the Unknowns. As a person and citizen, you can disagree—even absolutely—with
the reasons for their being Unknowns and soldiers and wars, but the honor paid
to our fallen men and women is still moving. I’m sure we can deconstruct
this moment, but sometimes you don’t need to to. Andy Rooney, of whom I
was no fan, fought in World War II and when he wrote about his experiences he
said something like, ‘the heart
knows something that the brain does not, and you weep.’ Brilliant.”
On Facebook
and Twitter, a number of colleagues responded to Friday’s post on The Best Years of Our Lives. Cynthia Lynn Lyerly wrote that she loves
the film. Theresa Kaminski wrote, “Find
some time to watch this fine film on Veterans Day.” Maria Sachiko Cecire added, “Love
this deeply moving film. Watch
it today in honor of Veterans Day.”
Ellak Roach links the holiday to the
election, writing, “Now, more than ever, The
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Hoffer is
relevant,” adding, “That's not as much about Veterans Day, but very relevant to
the political climate now, and is a good historical read.”
Finally,
while I’m not yet in a place where I feel I can effectively AmericanStudy the
disastrous election results, I wanted to note one thing. I wrote
earlier this year about how and why the 1876 election should serve as a
warning for us. We didn’t heed such warnings, though, and now I’m even more
worried, as I wrote in this
Huffington Post piece Thursday, that we will follow a similar path to the
one we did after 1876: normalizing and even celebrating white supremacist
narratives, attitudes, and actions. While present vigilance and activism offer
one important response to that possibility, so too does historical awareness
and engagement. Which is to say, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, here and in
online writing and book talks and classrooms, and I hope you all will as well.
Next series
begins Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other stories or histories you’d share?
No comments:
Post a Comment