By Bryson Ripley
At 11am, as freezing wind reminded us of the harsh conditions that soldiers are often asked to endure, Vets for Peace members and allies huddled close together to ring the chapter’s peace bell. The bell is rung 11 times as a call for peace. Much like bells were rung at the end of the war on 11-11-11, 1918. Today, people passing by looked on with curiosity as they walked to the museum doors.
Today members of Veterans For Peace Chapter 97, as well as friends and individuals from allied organizations, gathered at the Kansas City National WWI Museum and Memorial. We gathered not just to educate the public about the causes and costs of war, but also as an act of remembrance for all of our comrades who can no longer be there with us.
Our chapter tabled outside the museum where we passed out literature urging the public to reconsider the meaning of Veterans Day, and to learn more about why its name was changed from Armistice Day. If you were there and asked a Vets for Peace member, you quickly found out that Armistice Day was created to promote peace, and that its name was changed to Veterans Day to misdirect the public from imperialistic wars while promoting ultra-nationalism.
As people peruse the museum, they are shown guns, swords, artillery, as well as physical propaganda of the time urging young people to join their military. You’ll see exhibits showing mannequins dressed in period clothing fighting for their lives in the mud. To an untrained eye you may leave with an exciting perspective of war, but a new exhibit has been added that may change that. “Encounters” uses projections of real people to tell the emotional story of war. You see soldiers explain the hell of combat, women with skin turned yellow from working in munitions factories, and dissenters who were arrested and tried for protesting the war. This exhibit doesn’t make you excited to go to war; it reminds us that war affects us all.
–Bryson Ripley is chair of Veterans for Peace Chapter 97 Kansas City. © Bryson Ripley, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License.
Thank you to everyone who attended.
One Response
Test do not approve do not mark spam.