make the world safe

At eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918, the Great War ended, as the Germans signed the armistice.

The PBS website of the Great War is pretty good, as is the worldwar1.com site.

Also, the BBC 80th anniversary site from 1998 is still up and good, with letters back home.

Speaking of letters, the Harry Truman letters from the front are absolutely priceless.

It's my opinion that we'll stay there until Woodie gets his pet peace plans refused or okayed. For my part, and every A.E.F. [American Expeditionary Force – NPH] man feels the same way, I don't give a whoop (to put it mildly) whether there's a League of Nations or whether Russia has a Red government or a Purple one, and if the President of the Czecho-Slovaks wants to pry the throne from under the King of Bohemia, let him pry but send us home. We came over here to help whip the Hun. We helped a little, the Hun yowled for peace, and he's getting it in large doses and if our most excellent ex-mayor of Cleveland [Secretary of War Baker] wants to make a hit with us, he'll hire or buy some ships and put the Atlantic Ocean between us and the Vin Rouge Sea. For my part I've had enough vin rouge and frogeater victuals to last me a lifetime. And anyway it looks to me like the moonshine business is going to be pretty good in the land of Liberty loans and green trading stamps, and some of us want to get in on the ground floor. At least we want to get there in time to lay in a supply for future consumption. I think a quart of bourbon would last me about forty years.

HST is hard core.

better read than red

The speech that sent Eugene Debs to prison for 10 years. That will aid me a little in not thinking that we’re suddenly slipping into a dystopian future.

Gloating isn’t very nice.

But be fair! (A liberal whine, I know. Sorry.) Don't assert the prerogatives of victory and then claim the compensations of defeat as well. You can't oppress us and simultaneously complain that we are oppressing you.

A less apologetic approach.

Name the next US military operation. (I mean, Operation New Dawn? Puh-leaze.)

Sooners fans, please be nicer to the sportswriters. They don’t like it when you write nasty emails. I swear what they say won’t affect the way the team plays. You’re making me look bad.