Veterans Day

[montmil]

Today, 11 November 2011, is the observance of Veterans Day in the United States.

This day, and every day, my gratitude to you for your service to our great nation and my recognition of those who still serve.

And to our military veteran members living outside the USA, thanks to you, too, for service to your home nations.

I raise a glass to you all! [smiley=beer.gif]

Monte

[suecanada]

Derek and I will take part in our Remembrance day ceremonies at the town's cenotaph. Hope the poppy donations are high! Cold day but we always have a great turnout of villagers and the Land Forces Base is in our township and takes part as part of the Veteran's parade. Very nice to have young soldiers taking part. Reminds us all that peace all over the world is still illusive and a goal well worth all the scarifices that have been made and will be made in the future. We used to call 11/11/11 Armistice Day.

[k_enn]

<snip>We used to call 11/11/11 Armistice Day.

Wasn't that before WWII?   You sure don't look that old.   [smiley=smiley.gif]


I think a lot of young people don't know the origin of the holiday, i.e., that the armistice for WWI became effective the eleventh hour of eleventh day of the eleventh month.  

My thanks to all who have ever served.

k_enn

[montmil]

November 11, 1918 is the official end of WW I. Different countries honor this date with different names.

After WW II, in the United Sates, there was a desire to honor those veterans, too. There was a movement by many veterans groups in the USofA to change the meaning of the day to honor the veterans of all wars.

This became official via an act of the US Congress on May 24, 1954, and by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, calling on all Americans to remember the sacrifices of Veterans in so many wars to preserve our freedoms.

Monte

[wa1udg]

"For it's Tommy this, and Tommy that,  an' chuck him out the brute,
but it's Saviour of the country, when the guns begin to shoot"
..Kipling, "Tommy Atkins."    It will be ever thus.   God bless all who have heard those guns.  

[suecanada]

We've called it Remembrance Day since 1931 but I can only surmise that my parents kept calling it Armistice Day, so I got used to that name first. My parents were born in 1904 & 1905 and dad served as an older officer in the RCAF in India in radar in WWII.

[montmil]

... dad served as an older officer in the RCAF in India in radar in WWII.

Coincidence, Sue... My father was in the China-Burma-India theatre flying "the Hump" during WWII.
Workhorse birds Curtis C-46 and Douglas C-47 - 'Dakota' to your father.

Youngest son joins his USArmy battalion the day after Thanksgiving for his fifth deployment. Back to Afghanistan for another year -makes it two 'stan tours in three years.

Monte