by Jim Houck, Jr.
Veterans Day
November 11
Veterans Day is a celebrated holiday that honors all persons that served or are serving in the United States Armed Forces. It dates back to World War I and when the Armistice with Germany ended the hostilities on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson expressed what he felt that day meant to all Americans. Exactly one year later, Wilson’s Address to Fellow Countrymen on November 11, 1919, from the White House read as follows:
A year ago today, our enemies laid down their arms in accordance with an armistice which rendered them impotent to renew hostilities, and gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and juster set of international relations. The soldiers and people of the European Allies had fought and endured for more than four years to uphold the barrier of civilization against the aggression of armed force. We ourselves had been in the conflict something more than a year and a half. With splendid forgetfulness of mere personal concerns, we remodeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output, and assembled a great army, so at the last our power was a decisive factor in the victory. We were able to bring the vast resources, material and moral, of a great and free people, to the assistance of our associates in Europe who had suffered and sacrificed without limit in the cause for which we fought. Out of this victory, there arose new possibilities of political freedom and economic concert. The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interest of men. To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the council of nations.
On June 4, 1926, the United States Congress adopted a resolution requesting then President Calvin Coolidge to issue an annual proclamation calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate ceremonies. Approved May 13, 1938, by a congressional act, November 11 would be a day dedicated each year as a legal holiday and, thereafter, known as Armistice Day.
Raymond Weeks, from Birmingham, Alabama, a World War II Veteran, had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all Veterans, those alive as well as those who died in World War I. In 1945, Weeks led a delegation to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who supported the idea. Weeks led the first national celebration in 1947 in Alabama, and led it annually until his death in 1985. President Reagan honored Weeks at the White House with the Presidential Citizenship Medal in 1982, as the driving force for the national holiday.
I know a lot of people get confused trying to figure out the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day. Memorial Day is held in May and honors those who have died while in military service. Veterans Day is held on the eleventh day of the eleventh month and celebrates both those who died while in service and those who have served and are still living.
Sons of AMVETS Squadron 7 Thurmont will be holding a breakfast for Veterans and their families on Sunday, November 12, 2017. The breakfast is buffet-style and will be held from 7:00-11:00 a.m. All Veterans eat free. The breakfast is open to the public; non-veterans pay $5.00. November 11 falls on a Saturday this year, so National observance will be November 10.
God Bless the United States of America, God Bless the American Veteran, and God Bless You.
