In England during the month of November they sell paper poppies to benefit veterans, and everyone everywhere is wearing one. Tony Blair appeared nightly on the news with a fresh crisp poppy on his label. Mine was pinned to my jacket and got a little crumpled because unlike Tony Blair I had the same one all through November; I still have it, in my scrapbook, along with the poem my history professor explained was the background of the poppies: In Flanders Field.
Armistice day is important because it's the day the fighting stopped. But it's not the day the war was over. To many, delirious with illness, they didn't even realize it. Isabel Hutton said, "On November 11, 1918, we heard it was Armistice Day, but nobody seemed happy about it, and we hardly seemed to realize what it meant" (With a Women's Unit, p 164). To others, going home with broken bodies or to broken homes, their troubles were far from over. And even though there's hardly any veterans from World War I left, to some, the war is still not over. 
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(6) Fri Nov 12 2004 00:05 PST Some thoughts on Veteran's Day:
Happy Veteran's Day, everyone--or, as some people call it, Remembrance Day.
The last chapter is on the Girton and Newnham Unit, which is what--in the form of Isabel Hutton--introduced me to the SWH almost a year ago, so in a way it's like coming full circle (although I'm sure I'll be round a few more times before I'm done. One thing that struck me, near the end, was Dr McIroy retelling the story of what an officer had told her about something he'd seen on the advance: a retreating army, caught on a pass and shelled, leaving just as mass of death. "One little foal was alive and standing by its dead mother; a little dog was also whining round a dead pony it had evidently lived with. Personally I always feel worse about those poor beasts, dragged unknowingly into the war and unable to get away." I've always felt the worst for the animals, too. I was going to leave my "Defend America, Defeat Bush" sticker on, but now that someone has scribbled "Not!" after it (which is very rude) I'll have to take it off, and I have nothing to replace it with until my "Republicans for Voldemort" stickers come. And, hahahahaha, we've just realised that the deadline for proposals for a conference is on... Monday. It's only a half page--page abstract, which I'm sure I can manage, but I'd like to think that at some point along my academic career I'll be prepared ahead of time for these things and not doing them at the last minute.
* Minus the chapters on the Royaumont and Romanian Units, which belong to Stacy. Fri Nov 12 2004 16:56 PST nemo me impune lacessit:
Hurrah! I have finished* a monumental work of great importance, my summary of the History of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, edited by Mrs Shaw McLaren, 1919. The entire thing, I imagine, once I put it all together, will be over 40 pages. Whee! And it only took five and a half million hours!