Veterans Day, which we commemorate on November 12 this year, is a holiday that is dedicated to honor all men and women, both living and deceased, who have served in the United States armed forces.

Unfortunately, it seems to have lost its significance, replaced by the more-convenient Memorial Day. A summer holiday.

In fact, the word “holiday” seems a bad choice of words when we talk about anything that is war-related. Veterans Day used to be known as Armistice Day since it marked the end of World War I, a war that doesn’t seem particularly important to most Americans, though it is most assuredly.

The Great War, The War to End All Wars, as it was known at the time, is seen by some historians as a bookend to World War II. A bit of unfinished business. For instance, Hitler used the armistice terms, which many Germans felt were terribly unjust, to help whip up his toxic brand of nationalism and, in effect, build the other bookend.

By the end of World War II, Europe, the center of civilization, was war-exhausted and the United States became ascendant. It was also the first truly mechanized war, and it introduced air power, tanks, and other more-efficient ways of killing people.

It’s a federal holiday now, and the post office will be closed and maybe your bank. You’ll probably have to show up for work, though. But read Joyce Tice’s history column (on page 34) and remember what this war meant to people in 1918 and what sacrifices they made to the “doughboys,” who charged out of trenches to meet machine gun fire, protected by only their woolen uniforms and a steel helmet.

- John Fulmer