Florida Marks 95th Anniversary of WWI Armistice on Veterans Day

Veterans Day was originally known as Armistice Day to mark the end of World War I on Nov. 11, 1918.

Its easy to forget American involvement in World War I, though public interest in it is picking up again and August 2014 will mark 100 years since the start of the conflict. The American role in the war simply lacked the drama or the sweeping victories of the Civil War or World War II. To some, American involvement in World War I remains a mistake (Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan come to mind) and an argument can be made that the rise of Soviet Russia and of Nazi Germany would have been far different -- and perhaps would have never taken place -- had America not entered the war in early 1917. The fact that hundreds of thousands of men fought for four years in massive lines of trenches over inches and yards remains almost incomprehensible a century later.

While Florida housed some naval bases in the war, the Great War, as it was called, did not impact the Sunshine State the way that other conflicts -- namely World War II -- did. But reading information on the fallen and going through the 39 rolls of information at the National Archives on the men drafted from Florida holds the human interest -- and then some.

Almost 200 Floridians who lost their lives during World War I are buried in seven American military cemeteries in France. A stunningly high percentage of the young men from Florida who lost their lives were killed in the final weeks of the war in late October and early November 1918. Some of the doughboys from the Sunshine State, buried in France, died in 1919 -- victims of their wounds and the influenza epidemic that swept the world after the war.

Even the ones who survived the war were not always lucky. During the Great Depression, hundreds of former doughboys would head to veteran camps throughout the state, looking for work. In the hurricane that swept through Key West in 1935, an estimated 250 veterans of the war lost their lives.

Like the war they fought in, Americas veterans of World War I have often been overlooked and the last one passed away in February, 2011. While it may be easy to forget the war, we should never forget the Americans whose lives were forever impacted -- and far too many ended -- by it. Time will not dim the glory of their deeds, noted Gen. John J. Pershing of Americas dead from the war. It hasn't.