Then came the armistice!

When our victorious armies were wending their way towards the Rhine, when men of the navy and the marine corps realized that peace had come and that home was again within reach, this thought of a veterans’ band, which had slumbered far back in the subconscious thoughts of all of them, burst into objectivity.  An association of some sort was widely discussed not only by the men but by the officers as well.  But how could even the start of it be begun?  Those who considered the project most seriously were confronted with a difficulty which seemed at first to be almost insurmountable:  that was the difficulty of assembling at one time and in one place a gathering which might at least approximately represent the whole army, navy, marine corps, or even the A.E.F.

This difficulty tended to narrow what is believed to have been the wish of everyone when he first thought of the matter, that is the hope that it would be another Grand Army of the Republic, another United Confederate Veterans, but greater than either because representative of a United Country.  Talk started then about all sorts of imagined and fancied veteran organizations.  Some advocated an officers’ association.  This was believed to be possible because officers had more freedom and more financial ability to attend a convention.  Others thought the enlisted men should perfect organizations by regiments first, then divisions, and finally form one great united body.

The present leaders in the movement have since said that they realized that all of these schemes must come to naught because no organization except one on the broadest possible lines could be effective.  They believed that all officers and men of the three branches of the service and all enlisted women, whether they served at home or abroad, should be eligible and urged to join one thoroughly democratic and comprehensive organization.  They knew that any organization leaving out one or more elements composing the military service of the United States would be forced to compete constantly with the organization or association so discarded.  In short, they knew that in union there is strength.  And they believed, and still believe, that the problems of peace after a catastrophe such as was never before witnessed in history are so grave that they can be met with safety only by a national bulwark composed of the men who won the war, so closely knit, so tightly welded together in a common organization for the common good of all that no power of external or internal evil or aggression, no matter how allied or augmented, could hope even so much as to threaten our national existence, ambitions, aspirations, and pursuit of happiness, much less aim to destroy them.