Cord Byrd: “the nights are growing chilly, though the days remain warm and dry--dry for too long, really, over in McLean. The…”

“the nights are growing chilly, though the days remain warm and dry--dry for too long, really, over in McLean. The brilliant crimson maple and bright yellow poplar leaves have nearly disappeared, replaced by the more somber late autumn tones of deep bronze oak and rich golden hickory leaves falling in swirling waves across the road to join the drifts of leaves awaiting the rake. The more subdued coloring is in keeping with the holiday that approaches this Sunday. For, despite any attempts to mask the nature of this holiday behind sales and pre-Christmas hype, Veterans Day remains true to its purpose. It was the old Armistice Day when I was a boy-- Armistice Day, November 11. To say Veterans Day is to hear the haunting echo of taps being played on a lone trumpet on a West Virginia hill far away--I can hear its tones being wafted by the autumn air to this Capital City--and the sharp report of a 21-gun salute ricocheting across a field of sad white crosses. Out of the corner of one's eye is glimpsed the silent rank and file of heroes who came home, some whole and some not, but all remade by the shared experience of warfare. On Veterans Day, we travel in the company of heroes. Veterans Days, Armistice Day. My mother died on the eve of Armistice Day 1918; my mother, whom I never saw, as far as my recollection is concerned--the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the day on which the guns fell silent at the end of the war to end all wars, World War I.…”