War and Thanksgiving by John Amble, War on the Rocks.
Happy Thanksgiving from War on the Rocks! Today is all about tradition: turkey and stuffing; family and friends; Lions and Cowboys games (and that random third game that showed up a few years ago, but that ruins the poetic sentence structure I was going for, so we’ll ignore it…sorry AFC North fans). From early childhood, we all learn the origin story of Thanksgiving that is so mythically central to its celebration. Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony marked a successful harvest with a feast to which Native Americans who had lent much-needed assistance after the previous hard winter were invited. Records of earlier harvest celebrations and debates (google “thanksgiving origins” if you’re interested and have hours to kill) about the actual provenance of what would become our Thanksgiving aside, it is no surprise that the centuries-long history would make it the holiday most steeped in uniform tradition across America…