Facts About Veterans Day

Veterans Day is a well-known day in American history and the day is celebrated with great affection and passion to honor the respectable veterans of the United States. With every passing year Veterans Day Celebrations are taking new dimension by incorporating various productive ceremonies and activities along with the very generous deeds of serving free food to Veterans.

While everybody celebrates Veterans Day with great compassion but there are some amazing facts about Veterans Day that only few people know. Some of the facts about Veterans Day are given below:

·         The word Veteran means old experienced soldier.

·         Veteran word first came in to use in 1789, in English language when a reference had to be made for X-Army men.

·         The word Veterans is used as a reference to people who have served the country during war and peace times and it includes people from all the armed forces like US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

·         Initially, Veterans Day was known as Armistice Day.

·         President Eisenhower approved the name “Veterans Day” instead of Armistice Day in 1954.

·         At present, there are about 23.2 Million Veterans in United States (among which 9.2 Million veterans are above age 65.

·         A law about moving the Veterans Day to the fourth week of October turned out to be unsuccessful when it came to implementation.

·         Australia, Canada, Britain and France also observe the Veterans Day in remembrance of Veterans of World War I and II and typically 2 minutes silence is observed around 11 AM in Europe and other common wealth countries.

·         Britain celebrates the Veterans Day on Sunday as they call it the Remembrance Sunday.

·         The date 11^th November and the time 11 AM are significant because World War I was ended on the 11^th day of 11^th month and at the 11^th hour.

·         Veterans Day is different from Memorial Day as it honors all who have served and are serving the United States Army whether dead or alive whereas Memorial day is observed in remembrance of those who have died during Wars.

·         The idea of honoring all the veterans whether dead or alive was given by Raymond Weeks in 1945.

·         11^th November is both State and Federal holiday in United States.

·         People spell Veterans Day as Veteran’s or Veterans’ day whereas it simply is spelled as Veterans Day with no apostrophe.

·         The most Veterans live in California than in any other state.

·         The income of Veterans is generally more than common people and it was about 35,000$ a year in 2009.

·         On 11^th November 1921, an unknown American soldier was buried at the National cemetery and his grave is called as ‘tomb of the unknown soldier’, on the same day every year the high ranked government officials lay a wreath on his grave.

·         1.6 million Female Veterans exist today.

·         In peace time 6 million Veterans served the country.