an affair to remember

Tomorrow is Veterans' Day (née Armistice Day, but renamed to honor all American veterans, and to wash Woodrow Wilson's fingerprints off of the War to End All Wars).

For Canadians, it is Remembrance Day -- a day for the Commonwealth to honor those who died in the First World War and wars thereafter.

Melaque has a winter population of expatriates and visitors sizable enough to honor days that have no significance in Mexico. Remembrance Day. Canada Day. Fourth of July. Two Thanksgiving Days.

So, some of us will meet, as we always do, on 11 November at 11 AM to honor the dead and Those Who Served. A tontine without subscriptions.

The program is always the same. Gary, restaurateur extraordinaire of Rooster's, will  make a few opening remarks on why we are there. I will, as I have done for the past several years, read John McCrae's sentimental "In Flanders Fields" with its thrown torches held high.

We all will then sing (or try to sing) the Canadian, American, and Mexican national anthems. I always chuckle during the last one when I hear northerners sing about foreigners' soles profaning Mexican soil.

I wish we would not sing the anthems. It is a violation of Mexican law to sing another nation's anthem in Mexico without governmental permission. And the inclusion of the Mexican national anthem is anachronistic because Mexico was not a belligerent in the First World War.

That is not to say that Mexico did not play a part in that war. Without a German diplomatic faux pas involving Mexico, The States may never have joined in what was going on over there.

While the European empires were drenching fields with the blood of their young men, America stood studiously neutral following George Washington's advice to avoid foreign entanglements. There were lots of reasons for that stance.

The American Navy refused to send any of its fleet to the Pacific in 1914 for fear the British would invade through Canada -- a fear that survived until the start of the Second World War.

Most Americans had escaped Europe and saw no reason to involve themselves in a war in which they could see no discernible national interest.

Americans of German ancestry were he largest of the European groups, with the Irish following quickly behind. Many of them had no interest in fighting against people who shared their blood.

Even the sinking of the Lusitania and the increased submarine attacks on American shipping were not enough alone to convert the American nation into a war machine.

 Mexico was involved with its own problems when Europe went to war in 1914. It had its own war boiling. The Revolution started in 1910. By the time an unknown Serbian killed the man who could one day have been emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the leaders of the Mexican Revolution had moved on from killing oligarchs to assassinating one another.

The Germans suspected it was just a matter of time before President Wilson maneuvered a reluctant American public into joining the war as an ally of Britain. There were German military advisers in Mexico during the Revolution. But that was not good enough.

Mexico remained completely neutral during World War One -- continuing to allow German companies to operate in the country even after many British, American, and Canadian businesses had been expelled. As a result, Mexico City became a headquarter for German saboteurs bent on mayhem in The States.

President Carranza, who had rejected American military assistance during the Revolution and was offended by the American invasion of Mexico in search of Pancho Villa and the American occupation of Veracruz, began leaning toward the Germans. And the Germans saw the time had come for an offer.

The German government sent a telegram, authored by a German foreign officer, Arthur Zimmerman, to the German Ambassador in Mexico City authorizing the ambassador to offer a military alliance to Mexico. If Mexico would declare war on the United States, Germany would provide financial support and would make peace with the United States only with the cession of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to Mexico -- part of the territory Mexico had lost in the Mexican-American War.

As bad luck would have it (for the Germans), British intelligence intercepted the encoded message. It was passed on to the Americans who made it public in March 1917.

At first, there was some skepticism about the authenticity of the telegram. British intelligence had already produced a stream of lies to induce American involvement in the war. Then the German Foreign Office, out of some Prussian sense of honor, admitted it was genuine.

The American public was outraged at German perfidy. (Much in the same way they reacted to the XYZ Affair when the French attempted to bribe American peace-makers.)

Within a month, the United States was at war with Germany.

We will never know if the Zimmerman Telegram would have been enough to take America to war. After its announcement, Germany authorized unrestricted submarine warfare against all shipping heading to Europe to support the allies.

America has long been ambivalent about the First World War. Even after the Zimmerman Affair, 50 congressmen voted against going to war.

When the war was over, Americans did what they could to forget the horrors they experienced in Europe. Wilson's idealism and rosy promises turned out to be dross. The First World War is the only major war for which there is no memorial on the Washington mall.

My grandfather fought in that war. Growing up, we had great admiration for those who had fought and died. But Wilson did not share that honor.

It is no surprise that Americans have done their best to switch over to honoring all veterans in general on 11 November.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I first encountered Wilfred Owens's "Dulce et Decorum Est." It had such a powerful; effect on me that I sat down and wrote a poem about the Vietnam War to rebut Owns's thesis. (Of course, my poem ironically proved his point.)

In today's world, "Dulce et Decorum Est" is far more apt than "In Flanders Field."

       Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Of course, I will not read the Owen piece; I will read "In Flanders Fields."



And we will all honor the citizens who defended our countries and our ideals -- even though the policies for which they died may have been terribly wrong-headed.

To all of you veterans out there: thank you for putting others before yourselves. Your service is appreciated.