Today is Veteran’s Day in America. The original reason for this holiday was to commemorate the end of World War I on the eleventh hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

In the United Kingdom, where it is celebrated as Remembrance Day marking the end of the Great War, many of its citizens wear paper poppies in jacket and coat button holes in memoriam.

The inspiration for these decorations came from Canadian John McCrae’s World War I poem “In Flanders Field” and its famous first line: “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row.”

McCrae, a medical officer, died in France of pneumonia in January 1918, 11 months before the war ended.

Poppies of course are known in Afghanistan and other countries where they are the staple for opium production. The comparisons reflect some of the crucial differences between the World War I era and today.

Then, world war was the overriding issue. Today, major conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and the Persian Gulf now rage. Then, the great imperial powers of Germany and Russia lay in ruins as did an exhausted Great Britain. The U.S., physically untouched, was becoming the globe’s economic powerhouse. And........

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