Veterans Day is Monday

This coming Monday, November 11, is Veterans Day, and area residents will have some options for helping to commemmorate the day the honors America’s war dead.

Since Monday is a non-school day, the students of the Odessa School District will give a Veterans Day presentation this Friday at 11 a.m. in the school multipurpose room. All veterans and community members are invited to attend.

On November 11 itself, the members of VFW Post and American Legion Post and their associated auxiliary members will provide a turkey dinner at the Old Town Hall beginning promptly at 6 p.m. Bob Kissler will be the moderator for the evening and Pastor Tim Hauge of Christ Lutheran Church will give the keynote address.

The entire community is invited and requested to bring either a side dish, salad or dessert to complement the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy provided by the veterans organizations.

According to Wikipedia, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed Armistice Day for November 11, 1919. In proclaiming the holiday he said, “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 Congress passed a resolution seven years later requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue another proclamation to observe November 11 with appropriate ceremonies. In 1938, Congress made November 11 of each year a legal holiday called Armistice Day.”

In 1945, World War II veteran Raymond Weeks Alabama proposed the idea of expanding Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those killed in World War I. General Dwight Eisenhower supported the idea of a National Veterans Day, and Weeks led the first national celebration in 1947 and continued until his death in 1985. He was honored by President Reagan with the Presidential Citizenship Medal in 1982.

U.S. Representative Ed Rees of Emporia, Kansas, presented a bill establishing the holiday through Congress, and President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law May 26, 1954. Congress amended the act in 1954 to replace “Armistice” with “Veterans.”

In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, moved Veterans Day to the fourth Monday of October, but in 1978 it was moved back to November 11. The legal holiday remains on November 11, but if the date happens to be a Saturday or Sunday, organizations that observe the holiday normally close on the Friday before or the Monday after.