It’s hard for anyone alive today to imagine the sheer senselessness of the war that ended with an armistice on November 11, at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918, the day once known as Armistice Day and now, in this country, as Veterans Day.

We can celebrate the heroic resistance to Nazi Germany’s aggressive expansion in the Second World War that would follow the First. I disagree profoundly with the reasoning behind the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq; but I can at least comprehend the arguments that were made for them. But the meaninglessness of the First World War boggles the mind.

Propaganda aside, there was no high moral purpose to the war. Millions and millions of teenage boys and young men lived, fought, and died in the mud. The nations of Europe virtually bankrupted themselves turning their entire economies into machines of mutual destruction. An entire generation of men and women were permanently traumatized by what they’d seen at the Front. Three of the seven main combatants collapsed into revolution almost immediately; two more disappeared off the map entirely, splintering into five or six new countries and launching even more wars. And… for what?

The First World War is a case study in bad leadership, brittle planning, and over-confidence. (The most baffling tidbit of trivia about the build-up to war, for me, is that German military planning made it literally impossible to begin mobilizing their reserves without actually launching an invasion of France and Belgium, leaving them no flexibility for diplomacy once the mobilization process began.)

Okay, I suppose that’s enough military history to make the point: On Veterans Day, we celebrate all those who have volunteered to serve in the nation’s armed forces, in peacetime or in war, and the express our gratitude for the sacrifices they have made. But we also recognize the horror of war. We commend those thrown into it against their will and for no good reason at all, and honor the many hardships they endured. And above all else we celebrate the Armistice, the end of the war, the beginning of an all-too-brief peace at the end of years of destruction, and we pray for peace for our people and for the world, now and for ever.

25. For those in the Armed Forces of our Country (BCP p. 822)

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and
keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home
and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly
grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give
them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant
them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

4. For Peace (BCP p. 815)

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn
but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the
strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that
all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of
Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and
glory, now and for ever. Amen.