As all us oldtimers remember, Nov. 11th was originally created a holiday to commemorate  the date of the ceasefire in the Great War (Aug. 1914-Nov. 11, 1918) which was supposed to put an End To War Forever (as all the statesmen of the time assured us).  Guys like my grandfathers, who were sent Over There after being drafted (really big wars always require really big armies, and hence lots of draftees--and they become really big wars not when it's convenient for our leaders, politically, to institute a draft, but whenever our enemies decide they can get away with an attack with their own really big armies--please remember this) were really overjoyed to still be alive in one piece on Nov. 11, 1918, when so many of their buddies (over 10 million in the allied countries--USA, Britain, France, Italy) were dead, and at least that many crippled for life.  Lest we forget.
      My grandfathers were lucky to come through, but they were equally thrilled to know that whatever the cost, whatever they had been through, they--we--had been victorious.  The Good Guys--our side in that war--had defeated the people who had started the war in the first place for the purpose of conquering their neighbors, stealing their lands (in whole, as with the Austrian aim of annexing Serbia, or in part, as with the German aim of seizing huge territories in the East--consult the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk--or even the Ottoman dream of reconquering Egypt and expanding into the Caucasus) and enslaving their peoples. 
     It was a victory for the principle of Anti-Imperialism, of democratic self-determination for peoples, even if that principle was to be betrayed in many instances at the Versailles conference that followed in 1919.  But the principle was enunciated (thanks to the USA) and many peoples who were ignored in Paris, such as the Indians and the Arabs, the Armenians and the Kurds--and the Jews of Israel--and yes, even the Viets,  Cambodians and Laotians from French Indochina--took note of this principle and went home determined that the last word had not been spoken.  They would make Wilson a prophet,  even if he was without honor in his own country. 
     The peoples of the Allied Powers were simply overjoyed that "The Hun" had been defeated, driven back from their homes--forever.  And not only that, but those warmongers, the Emperors--the Hapsburgs in Vienna, "Kaiser Bill" in Berlin--had been driven from these capitols in flight for, literally, their lives, one step ahead of firing squads of their own people, determined to create democratic societies and political systems so that never again--NEVER AGAIN--could tiny cliques of oligarchs, or single despots, unelected and unaccountable to their peoples, decide,  on their whim, to plunge mankind into the Hell of War.  It was a Great Day for Freedom--and PEACE.  The only thing that spoiled it for my grandfathers was learning that Wilhelm Hohenzollern had been granted refuge in neutral Holland and, in fact, they would not get to "hang the Kaiser!"  as they had been expecting. 
     But what the hell--the important thing was that the Good Guys, the Peace-Loving Democracies, had won the war, the war-mongering dictators had been defeated, and best of all, the evil and futility of aggression was so manifestly proven for all time that no one, anywhere, would ever again dream the nightmare of conquest---certainly not in civilized Europe.  Peoples everywhere were safe.
      My  grandfathers were finally able to come home from Europe, one to look for a wife and a business, the other to return to his clothing store and his wife and their 4 kids.  At least, he said to himself, none of his three sons would ever have to go through what he had, and his brothers and sisters and cousins---and all their wives and husbands and kids and his aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews  in the old country---would now be safe, and could live their lives in peace, if not exactly the plenty and freedom he had found in America.
     There were those who thought the Allies should occupy Germany and Austria, and teach these peoples the customs & content of democracy--but they were in a tiny minority, and ignored.  Instead, the political leaders of the democracies imposed financial penalties on the Germans and Austrians,  and left them to manage their own affairs.  After all, no one in the chanceries wanted to insult their diplomatic colleagues in the Wilhelmstrasse or Vienna by suggesting that they needed tutelage in decent government from the democracies. 
     Thus, the government of Germany descended into the maelstrom of putsch and counter-putsch, of socialist revolution and nationalist reaction, and finally of national-socialist  revolution that brought 'ordnung' to Germany--and, with the Enabling Act, and the Law for the Defense of the Reich und Volk, a single-party dictatorship that was endorsed by a vote of over 90% of the electorate; of course, by then, all political opposition had been outlawed, just as in the communist "elections" in the USSR. 
     Within a few years of coming to power, this national-socialist regime had openly violated the provisions of the Versailles Treaty that limited German military power as a protection for the peace of  Europe.  The Allies could have easily invaded and occupied Germany, and restored democracy and human rights---but that would have meant interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, and the politicians of the democracies, preoccupied with what they considered the far more important issue: "It's the economy, stupid!"---chose to do nothing, and leave the preservation of world peace to the 'soft power' of public opinion, backed up by threat of trade embargoes, in the high moral forum of the League of Nations.
     When Germany abrogated the Versailles Treaty  and announced the creation of the Luftwaffe, the acquisition of tanks and bombers and U-boats, the huge expansion of the Wehrmacht, my grandfathers--both of them--wanted the Allied Powers to invade Germany and put an end to the Nazi state.  My Texas grandfather was sure they would do so within months; how could they not?  My Polish grandfather was more cynical: he expected no good of politicians, even if elected, and courage least of all.
     When Hitler sent the Wehrmacht into the Rhineland, in violation of the provisions meant to assure France that its eastern border was safe forever, both my grandfathers expected  the French to invade Germany, with or without assistance from Britain or the USA.  They were both surprised and disappointed when they did not (we know now that the German General Staff expected this as well, and was prepared to overthrow the Nazi Party and arrest Hitler if the French invaded; to their astonishment, the hugely superior French Army remained supine). 
     When Hitler sent German bombers to develop tactics for aerial bombardment of cities in the Spanish Civil War,  my Polish grandfather began not merely advising, but pleading with his relatives in Poland to come to the USA, or at least get out of Poland and go wherever they could get a visa.  They told him it was crazy to leave a successful business and learn a new language in a new land (he had done so, of course---he was the pioneer of his generation).  And anyway, they pointed out to him, he was an alarmist---no one would ever start another war.   Didn't Hitler constantly declare his love of peace?  Didn't the Germans have a right to national pride?
     When Hitler sent the Wehrmacht to invade and annex the independent nation of Austria, my grandfather Charlie expected the Allies, including America, to send troops to kick them out and restore Austrian independence.  He was rudely awakened to the strength of the isolationist faction in America, even in the White House, when Roosevelt made no move even to encourage such action by Britain and France.  Grandfather Abraham was more sanguine about the anschluss.  He observed resignedly that it was inevitable that the Germans, under Hitler, would absorb--by conquest--the rump Austria, just as they had 'absorbed' the smaller German states 80 years earlier under Bismarck et al. Grandfather Abraham had an understanding of European history equal to any modern American Ph.D., acquired by listening to his parents, aunts and uncles argue about politics over the dinner table in Poland.  It was thanks to this understanding of Europe that he had come to America.
     When Hitler threatened the Czechs in 1938, demanding the ceding of the Sudetenland with all Czechoslovakia's border defenses, grandfather Charlie was certain that Britain, France and Russia would finally stand up to the Nazis and put a stop to German aggression. When Chamberlain and the French Premier caved in at Munich,  and Chamberlain returned waving a treaty which he proclaimed "...guarantees PEACE IN OUR TIME!",  Charlie cussed him out as only a Texan can cuss a damnfool blue-blood foreign diplomat.           
     Charlie was not diplomatic, but a straight-talking Texan--one who understood the nature of men, especially bullies, liars and fools.  He understood the relative value of treaties and armies in restraining warmongers.  He had seen what happened to the Belgians after the Kaiser had invaded their country, deriding its treaty of perpetual peace with Germany as "...a mere scrap of paper." 
     Grandfather Abraham was more than disgusted--he was frightened.   Now he was an American, and a veteran of the US Army Expeditionary Force.  Since the war, he had refused to travel back to Europe, even to visit his relatives.  He offered to help them buy a house if they would just come, but they would not.  Anyway, it was getting harder to obtain visas to the USA.  
     He advised his three sons to get in shape, because there was going to be a war.  Hitler would start it, and they would be drafted. His nephew, who took him seriously, began taking flying lessons.   Winston Churchill, despised as another 'alarmist' by the appeasement crowd, commented that "We have had to choose between war and dishonor.  We have chosen dishonor for now, and we will have war soon enough."
     When Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, in violation of the Munich agreement he had signed with Neville Chamberlain, Charlie was too fed up to even write a letter to his congressman.  He knew it would be a waste of time anyway. 
     Grandfather Abraham wrote again to his relatives  in Poland, and they again reassured him.  Even if Hitler wanted to invade Poland, he would never dare.  Didn't Poland have treaties with France and Great Britain, guaranteeing to come to the defense of Poland if attacked?  And no matter how bad relations were between Poland and the Soviet Communists, surely Stalin would never permit Hitler to invade Poland!?  And how could anyone, even the Germans, dream of opposing the mighty Soviet Red Army?  So relax---forget about politics, and tend to business  After all: NO ONE WILL EVER START ANOTHER WAR IN EUROPE, RIGHT?    
     When Hitler and Stalin signed the Hitler-Stalin Treaty of Alliance between Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union in August, guaranteeing Germany every strategic material the Wehrmacht would need to wage war in spite of an  Allied naval blockade--everything from aluminum to zinc, with food, petroleum and steel thrown in in virtually unlimited quantity---Grandfather Charlie was stunned.  Abraham put aside his fears for Europe, and began to fear a German-Russian invasion of the United States, after they had conquered France and the British Empire. 
     The "Pact of Steel", as it was called (in Russian, the "Pact of Stalin"---Stalin liked that) contained a secret codicil which was unknown until Allied soldiers obtained copies of it after the war, agreeing to the mutual German-Russian invasion and division of Poland.  Two weeks later, on Sept. 1,1939, Hitler invaded Poland.  Stalin waited two more weeks, so as to claim he was coming to Poland's defense.  Abraham's nephew Morris said goodbye to my father and his buddies, got on a Greyhound bus headed for Vancouver, and volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
     Asked by a newsman what they should call the "new Great War", Churchill replied: "The 'Unnecessary War'!"  It became known, to avoid embarrassment to the appeasers, as 'World War II'.
     And so, on Armistice Day, Nov.11, 1939, people all over the democratic world wondered what they had done wrong, what blunders they were guilty of, that had led to the resumption of a war by the same nations, the same men--and their sons and nephews and grandsons--that they had thought beaten in 1918.  And this war was destined to kill, in Europe alone, not the 15 million of WWI, but over 50 million....
     Will we, 20 years from now, be sending our sons and nephews to fight the same men, and their sons and nephews, who we ought to civilize thoroughly---really thoroughly--TODAY, so that they will learn not to start aggressive wars? (AND TERRORISM IS AGGRESSIVE WAR).  Will we be faced with the need to fight a huge war after the horror of a nuclear 9-11 murders not thousands, but millions of Americans?
     God Bless you, Charlie and Abraham---you did your part.  Pray that we do ours.