Overview
- The Syracuse Chapter of Veterans for Peace and the Beyond War and Militarism Committee will host a “Reclaim Armistice Day” gathering on Nov. 11 from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the First Unitarian Universalist Society, 109 Waring Road.
- Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh has issued a 2025 proclamation naming Nov. 11 Armistice Day for Peace in the city, continuing a practice he has maintained for seven years.
- A local letter argues that militarism and a “warrior culture” have intensified in U.S. civic life and cites President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about the “military-industrial complex.”
- Armistice Day began as a commemoration of the 1918 cease-fire but was renamed Veterans Day by Congress in 1954, which shifted the U.S. focus toward soldiers and veterans.
- A separate column revisits World War I’s Ypres battles and the Menin Gate memorial to the missing, underscoring the scale of loss the Nov. 11 observance was created to remember.