On Veterans Day, peace groups call for a remembrance of Armistice Day.

A small group can often be seen during the commute hour on Del Monte Avenue at Window on the Bay protesting or calling for peace. 

On Nov. 11, the group called for something different: to remember and reclaim Armistice Day, the original name behind Veterans Day. 

Organized by Veterans for Peace, it attracted about 12-15 people who carried American flags and signs that called for peace and an end to wars. Cars honked in support as they zoomed by. 

They also set up a sign in the grass, which read “Armistice Day Meant No More Wars,” and was decorated with poppies as a symbol to remember World War I. 

“We're out here for Armistice Day because it was started at the end of the war to end all wars,” says Tony Amarante, a member of Veterans for Peace who attended the rally. He was in the Army for three years from 1974-1977. “We had Armistice Day, and we're still having wars, and it's getting worse.”

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson declared Nov. 11 as Armistice Day, the day that World War I ended. It was dedicated to world peace and honored veterans of the war. In 1954, Congress changed the name to Veterans Day after World War II, expanding it to honor all American veterans.

Lynn Hamilton, who is on the board of directors of the Monterey Peace and Justice Center, says that they'd prefer the end of wars rather than a name change back to Armistice Day. 

Hamilton pointed toward the recent election, which saw a sweep of victories from Democrats across the nation, as a signal that people wanted change and were fed up with the current government. Multiple attendees cited the current war with Iran as a point of dissatisfaction.  

Another attendee, Pat McNeill, a member of the Monterey chapter of Veterans For Peace, served in the Army for three years and fought in the Vietnam War in 1968. He says that experience made him antiwar for the rest of his life. 

“I went through 10 weeks of training with the same people and established strong relationships. We got to Vietnam, and I lost a lot of them,” McNeill says. “They got shot—every week it seemed like after every operation, who's not coming back? Who went home in a body bag and who went home on a stretcher? It was sad because they were just young people like me at the time.”

As he waved a large Veterans for Peace flag back and forward above the heads of the rest of the attendees, he said he still thinks often of the friends who died.