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Saturday
,
November 11
Veterans Day is an official United States public holiday,
observed annually on November 11, that honors military
veterans; that is, persons who served in the United States Armed Forces. It coincides
with other holidays, including Armistice Day and Remembrance Day,
celebrated in other countries that mark the anniversary of the end of World War I;
major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the
11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when the Armistice with Germany went into effect.
The United States previously observed Armistice Day. The U.S. holiday was
renamed Veterans Day in 1954.
Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day,
a U.S. public holiday in May; Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S.
military veterans, while Memorial Day honors those who died while
in military service.[1] It
is also not to be confused with Armed Forces Day, a minor U.S. remembrance that
also occurs in May, which specifically honors those currently serving in
the U.S. military.
On November 11,
1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issued a message to his
countrymen on the first Armistice Day in which he expressed what he felt the
day meant to Americans:
ADDRESS TO FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN
The White House, November 11, 1919.
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 aggressions 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 re modeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output, and assembled a great army, so that 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 interests 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 councils of nations.
WOODROW WILSON[2]
The White House, November 11, 1919.
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 aggressions 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 re modeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output, and assembled a great army, so that 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 interests 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 councils of nations.
WOODROW WILSON[2]
The United States
Congress adopted a resolution on June 4, 1926, requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue
annual proclamations calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate
ceremonies.[2] A
Congressional Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U.S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938,
made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday: "a day to be
dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known
as 'Armistice Day'."[3]
In 1945, World War II veteran
Raymond Weeks from Birmingham, Alabama, had the idea to expand
Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who died in World War I.
Weeks led a delegation to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who supported the idea of
National Veterans Day. Weeks led the first national celebration in 1947 in
Alabama and 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. Elizabeth Dole, who prepared the briefing for
President Reagan, determined Weeks as the "Father of Veterans Day."[4]
U.S.
Representative Ed Rees from Emporia, Kansas,
presented a bill establishing the holiday through Congress. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, also from Kansas, signed
the bill into law on May 26, 1954. It had been eight and a half years since
Weeks held his first Armistice Day celebration for all veterans.[5]
Congress amended the bill on June 1,
1954, replacing "Armistice" with "Veterans," and it has
been known as Veterans Day since.[6][7]
The National Veterans Award was also
created in 1954. Congressman Rees of Kansas received the first National
Veterans Award in Birmingham, Alabama, for his support offering legislation to
make Veterans Day a federal holiday.
Although originally scheduled for
celebration on November 11 of every year, starting in 1971 in accordance with
the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, Veterans Day
was moved to the fourth Monday of October (Oct 25, 1971; Oct 23, 1972; Oct 22,
1973; Oct 28, 1974; Oct 27, 1975; Oct 25, 1976 and Oct 24, 1977). In 1978, it
was moved back to its original celebration on November 11. While the legal
holiday remains on November 11, if that date happens to be on a Saturday or
Sunday, then organizations that formally observe the holiday will normally be
closed on the adjacent Friday or Monday, respectively.
