Choir Notes

Our Undying Gratitude
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4235

In the early morning hours of November 11, 1918, representatives of the Allied nations met in a railroad car near Compiègne, France, to sign an armistice ending what was being called the Great War.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the trenches in France, shellings and bombings were proceeding as they had for the past four years. In fact, as 11 o’clock neared—the appointed time when fighting was to cease—the attacks intensified. As one U.S. solder put it: "It was not a barrage. It was a deluge.”

But then, suddenly, at the 11th hour of that 11th day of the 11th month, the battlefield went silent. At long last, it was "all quiet on the western front.” "The roar stopped like a motor car hitting a wall,” a soldier recalled. The quiet was uncanny as soldiers on both sides crawled out of their trenches. Some cheered or sang; others stood numb. Germans threw down their weapons. One intrepid American infantryman raced out into no-man’s-land with the stars and stripes on a signal pole and planted it in a shell hole while a bugler played "The Star-Spangled Banner” on a German trumpet.1

The armistice that we commemorate every November 11 ended World War I, but it did not end war, nor did it end the need to defend the cause of freedom. Veterans Day has therefore become a day to honor veterans of all wars. So today, with brave soldiers again engaged in conflict on foreign soil, may we remember the stirring words of President Harry S Truman: "Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.”2

1 See Daniel J. Sweeney, comp., History of Buffalo and Erie County, 1914–1919, 2nd ed. (1920), 317.

2 Address before a joint session of Congress, Apr. 16, 1945, www.trumanlibrary.org/ww2/stofunio.htm