Veterans Day is annual holiday in the United States honoring veterans of the armed forces and also the men and women killed in the country's wars. The observance originated as Armistice Day, which was set aside by the United States, Great Britain, and France to commemorate the ending of World War I (Nov. 11, 1918). After World War II it was recognized as a day of tribute to the veterans and the dead of that conflict as well. In Canada it came to be known as Remembrance Day, and in Great Britain the Sunday nearest November 11 was proclaimed Remembrance Sunday honoring the dead of both World Wars. In 1954, after the Korean War, the date was officially designated in the United States as Veterans Day to honor servicemen of all U.S. wars.
According to the statistics I have seen, there are 25 million living veterans, 48 million Americans have served since 1776, and nearly one million died in combat or combat related events. War has terrible consequences. The reality of war is different -- it's ugly, it's deadly, and unfortunately, sometimes it's unavoidable. When it is unavoidable, we are lucky to have men and women who are willing to serve our country and make the ultimate sacrifice, if necessary. We are a nation born out of war. We declared ourselves independent from the British in 1776. It took us eight years to earn our independence from the British through the American Revolutionary War.
Many of us remember a soldier, a loved one, on a regular basis throughout the year. Maybe the young person is serving now. Maybe the young person died in wars past. As Ronald Reagan reminded us on a Veteran's Day observance in 1989, when they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. And all we can do is remember. Some people remember every day, as they remember one who has died. It's not so hard to summon memory, but it's hard to recapture meaning.
Reagan went on to say, "And the living have a responsibility to remember the conditions that led to the wars in which our heroes died. Perhaps we can start by remembering this: that all of those who died for us and our country were, in one way or another, victims of a peace process that failed; victims of a decision to forget certain things; to forget, for instance, that the surest way to keep a peace going is to stay strong. Weakness, after all, is a temptation—it tempts the pugnacious to assert themselves—but strength is a declaration that cannot be misunderstood. Strength is a condition that declares actions have consequences. Strength is a prudent warning to the belligerent that aggression need not go unanswered.”
"Peace fails when we forget what we stand for. It fails when we forget that our Republic is based on firm principles, principles that have real meaning, that with them, we are the last, best hope of man on Earth; without them, we're little more than the crust of a continent. Peace also fails when we forget to bring to the bargaining table God's first intellectual gift to man: common sense. Common sense gives us a realistic knowledge of human beings and how they think, how they live in the world, what motivates them. Common sense tells us that man has magic in him, but also clay. Common sense can tell the difference between right and wrong. Common sense forgives error, but it always recognizes it to be error first.
"We endanger the peace and confuse all issues when we obscure the truth; when we refuse to name an act for what it is; when we refuse to see the obvious and seek safety in the Almighty. Peace is only maintained and won by those who have clear eyes and brave minds. Peace is imperiled when we forget to try for agreements and settlements and treaties; when we forget to hold out our hands and strive; when we forget that God gave us talents to use in securing the ends He desires. Peace fails when we forget that agreements, once made, cannot be broken without a price.
Veterans Day is usually observed with parades, speeches, and floral tributes placed on graves or memorials of those who served. In the United States, group naturalization ceremonies have come to be an important part of the day's activities.
Special Veterans Day services are held at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., and at similar shrines in other countries. Churches observe two minutes of silence. In 1921, the body of an unknown American soldier was moved from France to be buried in the Tomb of he Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. The tomb honored all American soldiers who died fighting in the war. Two more unidentified American war dead were buried at Arlington in 1958. One was killed in WWII and the other in the Korean Warn. Then, in 1984, a body from the Vietnam War was brought to join the other unknowns. The 3rd US Infantry, the Army/s honor guard, keeps a constant vigil over the tomb and it’s a tradition for the president to lay a wreath at the tomb each Veterans Day.
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