Adventures in Parenting

For those of us in the U.S., no school today! It’s Veteran’s Day.

If you or someone in your family serves or served in the armed forces, I want to say THANK YOU to you for all you do for our country.

While we enjoy our day off, please also take a moment to remember the significance of Veteran’s Day.

Here is a quiz you can give your kids to start the conversation (don’t worry, the answers for you can be found below):

1. Which president started the idea of a Veteran’s Day (though it wasn’t called Veteran’s Day then)?

2. After which war was the idea of a Veteran’s Day first started?

3. What was Veteran’s Day initially called?

4. Why was the holiday changed to be called Veteran’s Day?

The Department of Veteran Affairs gives this history of Veteran’s Day. It’s good material to read to your children to appreciate a bit of our nation’s history.

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “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 the nations…”

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m….

An 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.”

Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting in its place the word “Veterans.” With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.