Veterans Day is not the same as Memorial Day.  Memorial Day is a time to remember all of those who gave their lives for our country.  Veterans Day is to honor all who serve our country in war or peace, dead or alive.  This Day is intended to thank veterans for the sacrifices that they have made in order to fight for our country and to keep us safe.

Veterans Day was once called Armistice Day.  Armistice Day was named to commemorate the end of World War I.  World War I ended with an armistice on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, although it officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles signed June 28. 1919. In 1938 it became an official holiday to honor veterans of World War I, twelve years after Congress recognized Armistice Day as the end of the war.

President Woodrow Wilson on proclaiming Armistice Day, “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.”

After World War II and the Korean War, a World War II veteran by the name of Raymond Weeks suggested that Armistice Day be changed to Veterans Day to honor all who have fought for their country. Weeks lead the first celebration in Alabama in 1947. He is now known as “the Father of Veterans Day” and was awarded the President’s Citizenship Medal by then President Ronald Reagan in 1982.

U.S. Representative Ed Rees from Emporia, Kansas, presented a bill establishing the holiday through Congress. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, also from Kansas, signed the bill into law on May 26, 1954.