11/11/2025
Happy Veterans Day!
November 11th, 1918, was a day of celebration throughout the free world. A conflict without precedent was ending. An armistice stopping the “Great War,” was signed.
Advances in the use of artillery, chemical weapons and machine guns led to more than nine million military deaths and an estimated eight million civilian deaths during the war that devastated large swaths of Europe, as well as parts of the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific Region.
World War I was so horrific that many referred to it as the “war to end all wars.” Unfortunately, the optimism was short-lived.
A generation later, a second world war would follow, which was even deadlier than the first. Even so, The American Legion never wavered on the significance of the 1918 armistice. The nation’s largest veterans organization had been advocating for “Armistice Day,” to be observed as a national holiday since 1920.
In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, The American Legion led an “all Veterans Day” celebration in Emporia, Kansas, which was seen as the spark that lit the movement for November 11th to be a day to honor every American who honorably served in our nation’s military since the Revolutionary War.
The advocacy paid off. On October 8th, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a proclamation officially changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day.
In its “Suggested Talk for American Legion Speakers,” which was released to mark the first official Veterans Day observance seventy years ago, our organization spelled out its vision for the new national holiday.
Quote – “Veterans Day…like the Armistice Day of before…will ever remain a day of remembrance …remembrance for those who have placed their love of God and country, their devotion to liberty and freedom, above even life itself. But also it should be a day of rejoicing… rejoicing that American manhood and womanhood always have measured up to our responsibilities.” – unquote.
While those responsibilities may have shifted and evolved with each subsequent generation, the love for this country is a common thread that bonds veterans from the earliest days of our nation’s founding to those serving today.
In 1980, about 18 percent of U.S. adults were veterans. Today, it is approximately 5 percent. Active-duty servicemembers comprise less than one-half of one percent of the U.S. population.
Yet when Hurricanes Helene and Milton wreaked havoc on the southeastern United States, thousands of active-duty, Reserve and National Guard servicemembers mobilized to provide life-saving relief and recovery operations.
An estimated 43,000 U.S. troops and a dozen warships are deployed in the Middle East. Marine Corps detachments provide security at U.S. embassies worldwide. Members of the Coast Guard perform an average of 42 search and rescue missions daily and facilitate the movement of $15.6 billion dollars of goods and commodities through our maritime transportation system every day.
ALL Americans benefit from the service of this small and distinguished group of volunteers who currently comprise the U.S. Armed Forces.
Every year America loses distinguished veterans who were eyewitnesses to events that shaped our world.
On this Veterans Day, we honor not an armistice, but the men and women who have served and continue to serve in the greatest military the world has ever known.
Our message to America’s veterans – past and present – is simple. We will never forget you.
God bless America and God Bless our Veterans.
