As I stood at the corner of 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue shortly before 11:11 a.m., this morning, waiting for the bus to arrive with the members of my American Legion Post, an Austrian tourist asked me what was going on. Some little time thereafter, an Israeli tourist asked me the same.

While there is no reason why a casual visitor should know what days are legal holidays in the District of Columbia (or anywhere else in Our Fair Land), Austria suffered the loss of a generation of her young men in the ’14 – ’18 massacre. I do not know what history is taught in Israeli schools, so whether World War I (from which today’s observance arose) figures at all I cannot say. And where military service is obligatory, as it is both in Austria and Israel, a veterans’ day parade would involve so many of the population as to comprise more marchers than spectators. So my answer was explanatory (gently).

Howbeit, I was marching again, and attending the wreath-laying ceremony on the Intrepid Air, Sea and Space Museum.

Hence, no tax today.

Some gave little, some gave much, some gave all.

But if this country is to remain free, no one has the right to give nothing.