14 North Shore Towers Courier n December 2015 Veterans Day: A Brief History BY STEPHEN VRATTOS On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, all was quiet on the Western Front, when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect. World War I officially ended seven months later when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in France. It was on November 11 later that year, however, that President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the date as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. In 1921, an unknown World War I American soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This site, on a hillside overlooking the Potomac River and the city of Washington, D.C., became the focal point of reverence for America’s veterans. Similar ceremonies occurred earlier in England and France, where an unknown soldier was buried in each nation’s highest place of honor (in England, Westminster Abbey; in France, the Arc de Triomphe). These memorial gestures all took place on November 11, giving universal recognition to the celebrated ending of World War I, becoming known as “Armistice Day.” Armistice Day didn’t officially receive its name until a congressional resolution in 1926 and it took another twelve years before it was recognized as a national holiday. Had the idealistic hope that was intended by the pronouncement of World War I as “the War to end all wars” only proven true, America might still be celebrating Armistice Day. But only a few days after the holiday was proclaimed, war broke out in Europe. Approximately seven years and 407,000 American lives later, World War II ended. The first celebration using the term Veterans Day occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1947. It wasn’t until 1954 that President Eisenhower signed the bill that officially proclaimed November 11 as Veterans Day. A law passed in 1968 changed the date to the fourth Monday in October in an effort to ensure Americans a fourth 3-day weekend after Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day and Columbus Day, But it soon became apparent that November 11 was a day that held historic significance to many Americans, and in 1978, Congress returned the observance of Veterans Day to its original date. World War I trench warfare WWII Ladies Auxiliary member Ann Brady and Korean War Vet Fred Chernow WWII Army Artillery Vet Al Wein NST Canteen “Open for Business” WWII Navy Vet Bob Zuchor
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