On Veterans Day, A Promise Unfulfilled

11/11/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918, the guns stopped. My great-grandfather fought in that war, known then as the War to End All Wars or the Great War. We know it today as World War I. He served in the Royal Canadian Army.

That day became known as Armistice Day, but today is known as Veterans’ Day.

In the past 400 years, my family has heeded the call to arms for four nations. First for France and England, then for Canada and the United States. Among the wars that have been fought on this continent, they have served in nearly all. I sit today just over twenty-five miles from where ancestors of mine fought to prevent the English from sailing down the Champlain.

The promise of America has always been that all of its citizens are equal. While, at the time that promise was made, only white men were considered to be true citizens, that promise was made to all. This country fought a Civil War in order to put an end to the ownership of one man by another, and almost fought another in order to make sure that the political and civil rights of those people were held to be equal to those who had enjoyed them for so long.

That promise was extended to women.

That promise was extended to gays, lesbians and transpeople.

That promise is, as of yet, unfulfilled.

It matters little that our President is African-American, and it matters little than a woman is Speaker of the House.

What matters is that our President has been attacked for his race and not his merit. That people have attacked the Speaker of the House for being a woman. That, in the last campaign, the one woman who was fighting to become President was belittled for being a woman. What matters is that our gay and lesbian soldiers serve in silence and dread every day because of policies which betray the very promise of this nation.

What matters is that, today, America is still far from the promises that were made to its citizens, and that the fight for a more perfect Union continues.