From World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan

I recently watched the 92-year-old silent film The Big Parade, King Vidor’s 1925 epic that stunned American audiences with its depiction of the horrors of trench warfare in World War I. The story, backed by a magnificent score in the restored film, follows three men—a...

Remembering together and listening to veterans

Before it was it was renamed “Veterans Day” in 1954, America commemorated Armistice Day.  That started in 1919, one year to the day after the Armistice of Compiègne ended the industrial warfare that had killed 10 million young men with machine gun fire, artillery...

Veterans and the national anthem

The climactic scene of Ben Fountain’s excellent novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk takes place in the middle of a Dallas Cowboys football game. Billy and the rest of his platoon, fresh from vicious combat in Iraq and being put on display around the...