A Joyous Letter Speaks of War’s End

What a beautiful piece of writing about about a beautiful piece of writing. As for omitting or changing a few words in order not to offend readers one hundred years later: Puhleese! Such warped political correctness about something expressed a century ago is nothing less than ludicrous, in addition to being totally disrespectful of its author. Yet what's truly sad is the fact that there never was an official end declared to the Vietnam War, or Iraq ('Mission Accomplished'), nor will there likely be one for our 18+ years in Afghanistan.

Four of my great-grandparents were born in Italy, two in Ireland, and two in Scotland, and my Italian grandparents were born there and came here as children. I actually found this letter touching, the Irish captain writing affectionately to the Jewish cop. I'm very touchy about those ugly words for Italians because unfortunately I've heard them too often, them and the canard that all Americans of Italian descent must be connected to the Mafia. I think the last groups in the United States that it's acceptable to stereotype are Americans of Italian descent and old people. That said, I'm not going to let a word used by a man writing 100 years ago keep me from seeing how great it was that the probably Christian police captain and the Jewish policeman were friends. I don't believe in judging the past by current standards (and that includes removing the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle). Notice I didn't identify myself as an Italian-Irish-Scottish American. I figure that if you were born here or became a naturalized citizen, you're an American. Period.

Odd decision to publish this particular “joyous” letter containing a highly offensive ethnic slur and and casual reference to recreational prostitution. I doubt that Mr. Mc Sweeney was the type of person deserving of this recognition. Couldn’t you have come up with something a bit more dignified and sensitive for the centennial celebration of Armistice Day?

Wonderful description of the feeling of relief and joy after four years of daily horror.

And now I am crying. Oh, to be so patriotic and so united again. Pray that is is not because of a war.

WWI has been obliterated from American culture. To bring it and all wars into clear focus, you only need to read Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum est”.

While it is clear that this particular letter from Captain Sweeney was received by Officer Zwerling, a close look will suggest that Zwerling was not the only one of Sweeney's "boys" to receive word of the armistice in this way. The first page (apart from the hand-drawn cartoon) and the top paragraph of the second page are in thick, dark type. This is because the first part of the letter was typed on multiple sheets of paper with carbon paper in between to make a number of copies. The extra pieces of paper cause the typewriter to make the thicker, deeper impression on the paper. Note that the first part of the letter contains no personal references to the officer, only somewhat generic ones. So the captain did his duty by a number of his men. He wrote a letter to a small group of them. Then, removing the other copies, he reinserted the paper into his typewriter to personalize the final paragraph, which appears in lighter and clearer type. Probably each man got his own personalized final paragraph. Good of the captain to think of all of his men -- and an efficient way to communicate with them while carrying out all of his other duties.

We weren't celebrating the war's end; we were celebrating victory, having killed the enemy into unconditional surrender. Perhaps no one thought it but it was certainly the basis for all these outpourings of emotion. And I'm glad our forebears did destroy our enemy too but these letters and photos are celebrations of killing more than a return to normal life in my view. If the attack on 9/11 brought together the US, imagine how much a war between national armies would and then imagine emerging victorious. The ultimate Olympic competition. The celebration of "our team" having won. That's the way it has to be but it makes humanity look incredibly petty and trivial.

Extraordinary letter! And extraordinary that the family of Manny Zwerling kept it for 100 years. What a “you are there” feeling I have reading it. I get a real sense of the writer, his effort to bring this moment in NYC to life for his fellow officer serving overseas, and in unintended consequence, his 21st century readers. In my work publishing archival primary source document collections for use by scholars I rarely came across a letter as vivid as this that visits a crucial moment in history. Thanks to the Times, its reporters and researchers, for publishing it, and to the Zwerling family for donating it to the Policeman’s Benevolent Association. I will read it again to savor it.

I have a 11 November 1918 letter from my maternal grandfather in Bridgeport, CT to his parents in Illinois in which he describes the cerebration in Bridgeport when the news of the Armistice arrived there. Factory whistles going off and people going into the streets to celebrate. While bushiness were closed for the celebration he said banks were open as required by law.

Never forget we are greater together. Thank you veterans. My grandfather Leo Gladstone was an immigrant and an American patriot, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for the Battle of Belleau Wood, and the Silver Star for the Battle of Chateau Thierry for actions during the World War I. In his honor I share this excerpt: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Private Leo Gladstone (MCSN: 83235), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving with the Fifty-First Company, Fifth Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, A.E.F., in action near Belleau Wood, France, 6 June 1918. Although wounded in the arm by a machine-gun bullet, Private Gladstone assisted in carrying a badly wounded soldier of his company to a dressing station and returned to the front line to find that the company of which he was a member had changed its position, and that another member of the company had been wounded and left behind exposed to enemy fire, whereupon Private Gladstone voluntarily advanced alone under enemy observation and intense fire to the point where the wounded man was lying, killed an enemy soldier who had captured the wounded man, and after an hour of fighting during which time Private Gladstone and the wounded man were again hit by enemy machine-gun fire, the former carried the latter back to the front line, thus undoubtedly saving his life.

Wars always seem like a good answer to those who order them or celebrate them or themselves (“War President”). They are never a good idea to those who actually fight in them.

The part, early in the letter about the news over the phone made me choke back tears because it reminded me of the scene at the end of Ford Madox Ford's "the Last Post" where the telephone is the messenger that relays the end of war and that the obstacles to love are over. Was it a candle stick or a Stromberg Carlson all phone? It must have felt like the future was finally arriving, to get and repeat such news! Thank you for this. Such feelings!

When I called my mother (born in 1925) to tell her that her granddaughter had been born on November 11, 1997, she said, "On Armistice Day!"

The Great War turned out to be nothing but a tastemaker for WW2, again started by Germany. To see Angela Merkel these past few years unilaterally deciding how many migrants from the Middle East can enter Europe without first getting approval of Brussels is a dangerous indication that Germany still believes their superiority "Uber All." It seems only Trump is fully aware of this problem. Europe constantly is living in a dream world.

When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the signing of the Armistice was the happiest day of her entire life ... and that she never saw that level of relief and pure happiness among everyone around her. She didn't really care about who won. All she knew was that it was a monstrous war, and she wanted it over. Her brother came home and spent the next, and last, ten years of his life as an invalid as a result of poison gas. Armistice Day was not a celebration of victory for her. It was something vastly different. A few years after she shared that memory with me, I learned for myself during the Viet Nam Era how confusing it could be to separate honor for the soldiers from total disapproval of the mission.

If you go to Paris, make sure to go to the World War One Museum in Meaux just outside the city, a short metro/train ride away. It is fabulous. I was close to tears many times as I wandered through the exhibits.

We mourn and honor the Americans and all others who fought in and for WWl. But just as an FYI, the United States sent over 1 million horses to war between 1914 and 1918, and the US equine population was almost entirely lost. We sometimes forget the part that animals play in almost every aspect of life - and death, and certainly, war.

My dad was born in 1892 and was apprenticed as a Veterinarians helper at a young age who later volunteered to be a soldier as a teamster , training still wild horses known as western mustangs sent by train to the East during WWI.the poor brutes were half crazed from neglect and injuries during their long train ride and capture from out west, and were further brutalized into submission as obedient beasts of burden for the Army , that desperately needed transportation. (The Army had expanded exponentially into the millions almost over-night. )Dad shrugged it (brutalization)off and said that’s how animals were treated as the good-book said they were merely “ beasts of burden.” He went to France in 1917 working in the Veterinary’s Service attending to the mules and horses for all manner of illness and battle injuries. Few of the beasts ever returned to the USA. The few being mostly officers mounts he said.

What a beautifully written letter. Thank you for publishing.

Thank you for publishing this amazing piece of history. The photograph is powerful and captures the moment well but there is nothing like a hand written account written so personally. It certainly brings history back to life. I was fortunate to see the theater version of War Horse years ago when it came through New york. Even using those magnificent puppets in telling a story of WW 1 through the eyes of a boy and his horse the horror of that war came through. The barbed wire and mustard gas and the wet muddy trenches full of the wounded and fallen. We should do our best to keep history alive and never forget the cost and the sacrifice of war.

I popped a shocked laugh when I read the reference to Italians. It astonished me but also gave me a much needed laugh. Funny how times change.

Those were the days. Men from all different ethnic groups called each other by insulting names, but worked together in large organizations with less actual acrimony than they do today.

A war to end all wars did not. If each person who has ever heard the phrase were to ask, Why is that? and look at themselves for a good long time, and then act of behalf of the lack of real commitment to peace they find there, the phrase might gain a spark of meaning. Sad sad day, today. May it initiate at lease one person to ask and answer the simple question, "Why?"

I've noticed that, up in Westchester at least, there are just a couple of 'official' ceremonies honoring the 100th anniversary of the Armistice. I'm happy to see the Times remembering -- but disturbed that such a major anniversary was pretty much ignored. And our President? IS this what military service means, in the end: some old pictures, letters, and a public - and government - which can;t be bothered? How WWI is remembered - or not - is directly relevant to our support for VA healthcare. Is it a lot of hot air, used during elections, or when war is on the horizon, or do we have a commitment?

The erasure of World War I from our memory is all but complete. Casual stories and ceremonies that hold little meaning will be noted, then soon forgotten. World War II supplanted the 17-18 conflict. Yet the leadership that won WW2 came from WW1—FDR, McArthur, Patton, Eisenhower, Marshall, etc. Historians have written that the Meuse-Argonne Battle, the biggest battle in US history, was the birth of today’s Army. WW1 is not alone in being assigned to the dust bin of history. The War of 1812, the Mexican-American war, the Spanish-American war, the fighting to subdue the Philippines Islands 1899-1902 as well as the American Revolution remain obscure. WW2 and the Civil War dominate our remembrance. Movies, books, games, etc. When Veterans Day replaced Armistice Day, the Great War was gone. It also sounded the knell of what it stood for. Congress defined the Armistice Day as one of “thanksgiving and prayer and exercise designed to perpetuate peace through goodwill and mutual understanding between nations.” Now, we have perpetual war in the quixotic pursuit of world wide hegemony.

"Greeting's" Uggh. Even then. At least he had the excuse of having no delete button (but still... ).

Very cool to see this letter, ....and the sentences running on really gives a feel for the jubilation, the sense that no other passenger liner would get sent to the bottom of the sea, that no other doughboy would have his lungs destroyed by chlorine or mustard.

Magnificent. I have been weeping most of today. “Mom is crying about WW1”. My 19 year old brother KIA in 1968. My grandmother’s brother, Patrick, KIA serving with the British in1916. Never met him and will never know why, as an only son on a Kilkenny farm who did not have to serve, he served. I was crying because I was watching cspan among other reasons. They have authors telling their stories. No one has to rely on my tears, I just concluded, because there are books upon books for those in the future that want to know. I will sleep easier as I do with you Jim Dwyer recording.