War To End

About 90 former soldiers from Carroll County gathered yesterday in Westminster for a Veterans Day ceremony that featured speakers revisiting experiences from past and present wars, starting with World War I and ending with Operation Iraqi Freedom. Though long converted into the city's gymnasium, Longwell Armory regained a part of its past with the tribute to the military yesterday. Maj. Thomas Long of the Carroll County Sheriff's Office talked about his "grandpap." Army Lt. John Long arrived in France singing patriotic songs such as "Yankee Doodle" and "Over There," but then endured machine gun fire, artillery barrages and poison gas. John Long survived, but, Thomas Long said, his grandfather's brothers-in-law weren't so fortunate, suffering and later dying from their injuries in the war. "Sadly, it wasn't the war to end all wars," Thomas Long said.

Carol Hutchinson's last-minute wedding preparations include: meeting relatives at the airport, cleaning the house, picking up maid-of-honor gifts at the mall, going to the rehearsal, hoping that the war ends."

Revolutionary War soldiers fought with muzzle-loading flintlock muskets and lived off scant rations and what they could scrounge on the march.Two centuries later, Gulf War GIs -- including women -- carried high-powered automatic rifles, rode in Humvees and ate sophisticated prepackaged rations called "meals, ready to eat."Despite improvements in weapons, equipment and food, however, the "common soldier" has been the same person throughout history and should be honored for service to country, a history instructor at Boys' Latin School told students yesterday, Veterans Day."

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE chooses to open his tragedy "Macbeth" with a question posed by one of three witches: "When shall we meet again?" The second witch's answer: "When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won."The world's 128 nations must meet again now that the witch's conditions, and those of George Bush, have been met.The allies have vanquished their foe. And in the eyeblink that is our American stay on the planet, we see ourselves as the victors. We understand ourselves as those who have heroically brought good out of evil.

THE LETTER to the mother of the five soldiers arrived over the president's signature. Mrs. Lydia Bixby, of Massachusetts, lost two of her sons on the battlefield. Her sacrifice was great and the commander in chief was humbled by her loss: "I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save," President Abraham Lincoln wrote on Nov. 21, 1864.

HAS THERE ever been a war that so many people disapproved of but so few wanted to stop? Have the reasons for starting a war ever been so thoroughly discredited without turning into reasons for ending it? The Vietnam era antiwar movement had an agenda: Bring the troops home. What seems to be today's antiwar position - it was a terrible mistake and it's a terrible mess, but we can't just walk away from it - was actually the pro-war position during Vietnam. In fact, it was close to official government policy for more than half the length of that war. Today's antiwar cause doesn't even have a movement, to speak of, let alone an agenda.

Voices across Maryland shouted with joy yesterday for the soldiers who will be coming home. The voices marveled at America's stunningly swift victory and sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." They called for Saddam Hussein's head and whispered that the silencing of the guns had answered their prayers.The voices also raised questions: Were the troops really going to come home as soon as President Bush says? Was Saddam's war machine really destroyed? What would the next day bring?And yesterday was also a day for a collective moment of silence, lTC for church bells to ring out, for cars to stream down the highways with lights shining.

I HAVE TO confess that I was somewhat anti-military during my formative years.I say "somewhat" because I've not always supported the war, but I've always backed those who fought.I speak especially of Vietnam (although Grenada also bothered me). During the Vietnam War, my childhood fascination with miniature soldiers and tanks engaged in fantasy combat dissipated as the real combat raged on my television screen.Things got worse when the Army drafted one of my brothers. His heart sank when the notice came.

The end of the "War to End All Wars" will be remembered with an Armistice Day Celebration and Apple Festival on Sunday at a small Odenton church, Epiphany Episcopal, that is believed to be the only World War I military chapel in the nation. Its congregation of 150 families will use the occasion, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., to launch a $700,000 restoration of what originally was Epiphany Chapel and Church House, where young doughboys were welcomed in the spring of 1918 before they were sent off to the front in France.

MY grandfather, a veteran, never called it Veterans Day. It was always Armistice Day. The day the war to end all wars ended.But looking back on it 75 years later, Nov. 11, 1918, was the day the world as we know it began. It marked the end of our first venture as a world power. And once we entered the world stage, America was never quite the same.My grandfather and his three brothers had no real grasp of the global implications. They were just Kansas farmers doing what their country asked them to do. Like many of their fellow soldiers, this was their first real trip away from their farms and small towns.