Larry FloerschEach year on November 11 we celebrate what was once called “Armistice Day” — the day in 1918 the armistice, or truce, that “paused” World War I was signed by representatives of Germany, France, and Great Britain in a railway car in Compiègne, France. The signing ceremony was set for 11 a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year. That was deliberate. It symbolized a “last chance” for peace and was influenced by the biblical parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1–6).
Since then we have lived on the cusps of last chances. World War I, as the “War to End All Wars,” did not live up to that promise. It was in fact just a warm up for World War II. The approximately 40 million dead from all causes in World War I were soon joined by 85 million dead from all causes in World War II.
But the world changed forever at the end of World War II when, as suggested by author Noah Hawley in a piece (“Vonnegut and the Bomb”) in the August 2025 issue of The Atlantic magazine, humanity shifted in one brilliant and horrific split second from the Industrial Age to the Atomic Age. In that piece Hawley quotes journalist Arthur Koestler: “From the dawn of consciousness until the middle of [the twentieth] century man had to live with the prospect of his death as an individual; since Hiroshima, mankind as a whole has to live with the prospect of its extinction as a biological species.”
Our brinkmanship, however, has remained maddeningly undeterred. The World Future Fund (worldfuturefund.org) argues that since the end of World War II the U.S. has been involved in 19 more wars and estimates that in the three largest of those conflicts (Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan) more than 12 million people died.
By the mid-twentieth century, “Armistice Day” in the United States, which had become an official holiday in 1938, seemed outmoded in that only World War I veterans were recognized, and because of World War II and Korea, the ranks of veterans had swelled enormously. In 1954 Congress passed and Pres. Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation converting “Armistice Day” into “Veterans Day” to honor all U.S. veterans of all wars.
And we do honor them today, in both words and action. The Department of Veterans Affairs received $400 billion in 2025, making it one of the largest departments of the federal government. That is 5.7% of the total federal budget.
And still it does not seem to be enough. I daily receive direct mail solicitations from all sorts of groups representing veterans and their needs: the Wounded Warrior Project, Disabled American Veterans, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. The list goes on. They are, I am sure, all good causes, but at times it seems from the volume of those solicitations as if the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t even exist.
We say we love our veterans and thank them for their service. But are we providing enough? In a perfect world these solicitations on behalf of veterans should not be necessary. Every citizen should feel morally obliged to make sure our veterans and their families have whatever they need through the Department of Veterans Affairs. War is expensive, and caring for those who fought for us and survived is part of the cost of war. And paying for their care is nowhere near the sacrifice paid by so many of them. You cannot buy someone’s way back from the grave, nor can you buy a person a new set of natural legs.
At the same time we should all, including our leadership, work tirelessly to prevent situations that would add to those rolls of veterans who need help.
Like many Americans, I was taught that war is bad and peace is good. I was raised under the philosophy that starting a fight was wrong, but if forced into a fight to defend yourself and to not hold back. I was taught that bullying was bad. Those were all, I thought, American values. So a cabinet department with the word “defense” in its name makes perfect sense to me.
During a White House press event on Aug. 25, 2025, a remark was made that the name Department of Defense “didn’t sound good. … We want defense, but we want offense, too.”
The original Department of War was created in 1789. In 1949, in an effort to unify and provide better control and coordination of the nation’s military forces, it was subsumed, along with the Department of the Navy and the newly formed Air Force, into the Department of Defense. And I think the Department of Defense has served us well. Why would we want to revert to a Department of War? The notion smacks of someone who has actively sought to avoid fighting in a war and has never talked with someone who has.
So what will it be — “Defense” or “War”?
The difference it seems to me is that defense is something to prepare for rigorously and hope you never have to use. War is something you prepare for and can “let slip” like Marc Antony’s dogs if you feel it advantageous. The temptation and risk of doing that seems far too great while you are sitting on the cusp of a last chance.
