Observing Veterans Day

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Sunday, November 11 is Veterans Day in America and Remembrance Day in England. The holiday began as Armistice Day on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 – the exact moment World War I ended.

At that time, both nations marked the armistice with two minutes of reverent silence. The first for the nearly 20 million men who died during the war, and the second for the widows and children they left behind.

At the end of World War II, America changed the name to Veterans Day and the two minutes of silence was moved to the Sunday closest to November 11.

Both nations still honor their veterans today with tributes at cemeteries and lecture halls and always with that short period of profound silence. The VFW has long marked the day with the sale of red paper poppies made by the residents of veteran’s homes. The poppy symbolizes the red flowers that bloom so abundantly around the national cemetery of Flanders, Belgium.

The veterans of World War I are all gone now and a diminishing few remain from World War II.  Other wars have come and gone, and those veterans too remind us that freedom is never free, and that whenever it is threatened, young men and women will continue to take up arms and march into harm’s way.

And if you are looking for a quiet way to honor the veterans of all wars today, it might help to know that it took you approximately two minutes of silence to read these words.

Ward Degler lives in Zionsville with his wife and dog. He is author of “The Dark Ages of My Youth … and Times More Recent.” You can contact him at [email protected].

 


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