REMEMBERING AND HONORING OUR VETERANS

On this November 11, it will have been 98 years since President Woodrow Wilson issued a message to his countrymen on the first Armistice Day marking the end of World War I. While World War I officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, it was formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, when the Armistice with Germany took effect. The U.S. holiday was renamed Veterans Day in 1954. Some other nations honor it as Remembrance Day.

Some people confuse Veterans Day and Memorial Day.

On Veterans Day, we honor ALL who have served honorably, or are

currently serving, in the United States Armed Forces during wartime or peacetime.

On this day, particularly in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia, you may notice people wearing red poppies. That practice originated from the poem In Flanders Fields, written at the battlefront on May 3, 1915, during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields”

It was Moina Michael who was so inspired by the poem that she penned her own, and began the tradition of wearing red poppies:

“We cherish too, the Poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led,

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies.”

Memorial Day honors those who have died in battle or as a result of

wounds received in battle in service to our nation.

Memorial Day is an American day observance on the last Monday of May, originating after the Civil War ended in the spring of 1865 and originally referred to as Decoration Day.

By the late 1860s, Americans in cities and towns throughout the country began decorating their graves countless fallen soldiers with flowers each spring.  The federal government declared official birthplace of Memorial Day to be Waterloo, NY which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866. 

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, called for a nationwide day of remembrance.

“The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,”

It was called Decoration Day in order not to associate it with the anniversary of any particular battle.

General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery on the first Decoration Day, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.

Southern states chose to honor their dead on separate days until after World War I when it truly became a national day of remembrance.

On this Veteran's Day, we thank all who have or are serving in the military. We also appreciate the service families who often endure long separations and many stresses unknown to the civilian population.