Madison Veterans Speak: The World Needs Armistice to End Wars

media release:  This month, Veterans Day is observed in the US as an honoring of veterans and a glorification of wars. But many people do not know that November 11 was originally celebrated as an antiwar holiday - Armistice Day. What better way to celebrate our veterans than ensuring that no one ever again has to endure the horrors of war?

World BEYOND War-UW students will host a panel discussion featuring Madison antiwar veterans Donté Young (a UW student), Christina Hayes, Alex Mixtli & Seth Johnson. The public is welcome. Co-sponsors are Madison Veterans for Peace and About Face: Veterans Against the War. The panel will take place in UW Helen C. White Hall, Rom 4281.

The featured Millennial and Gen Z veterans will reclaim Armistice Day and advocate for war abolition. They will talk about US wars, militarism and imperialism at home and abroad. They will share:

why they joined the military & what it was like

how they came to question militarism and wars

what we can do to stop wars

In many parts of the world, principally but not exclusively in British Commonwealth nations, this day is called Remembrance Day and should be a day of mourning the dead and working to abolish war so as not to create any more war dead. But the day is being militarized, and a strange alchemy cooked up by the weapons companies is using the day to tell people that unless they support killing more men, women, and children in war they will dishonor those already killed.

For decades in the United States, as elsewhere, this day was called Armistice Day, and was identified as a holiday of peace, including by the U.S. government. It was a day of sad remembrance and joyful ending of war, and of a commitment to preventing war in the future. The holiday’s name was changed in the United States after the U.S. war on Korea to “Veterans Day,” a largely pro-war holiday on which some U.S. cities forbid Veterans For Peace groups from marching in their parades, because the day has become understood as a day to praise war — in contrast to how it began. 

World BEYOND War is a global movement to abolish war. Why do we have wars? Wars are organized mass murder carried out by governments. Why not skip the wars and solve our disputes with negotiations and armistice?

Learn more at Madison for a World BEYOND War’s website, and at UW-Madison World BEYOND War on Instagram, and RSVP for the event here.