Veterans Day

[Archangel M]

"A Veteran is someone, who at one point in their life, wrote a blank check payable to the United States of America for an amount up to, and including, their life. That is beyond honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer remember that fact."

 

[girlbug2]

This is one of the most overlooked holidays on the calendar. Too bad--IMO it's much more worthy than Valentine's Day, Cinco de Mayo, and many others that get such commercial recognition.

 

[WC_lun]

...

 

[Bill Mattocks]

 

[Makalakumu]

Veterans Day is also Armistice Day, a day when "the war to end all wars" ended. Also worth remembering...

:asian:

 

[CoryKS]

My son's school had a breakfast and program for Veteran's Day. It was nice, they filed us in by service and the band played The Star Spangled Banner and the choir sang God Bless America. Very nice. My son is not comfortable being the center of attention. He was not aware that the students would be walking in with their parent, so he got really nervous when he realized this; he thought he would be sitting in the bleachers with the rest of the students. I told him that somewhere in that room was a lesson about the importance of making sure you fully understand what you're signing up for. :rofl:

 

[Tez3]

Veterans Day is also Armistice Day, a day when "the war to end all wars" ended. Also worth remembering...

:asian:

It's Armistice Day for us and over the past few years we have gone back to the roots of it and just about everyone in the UK stops at 11 o'clock for the two minutes silence. It's very moving.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11731492

Animal lovers will appreciate this, we tend to forget the part animals have played in war to help us and how much they suffer in things like the Blitz.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11734305

Sunday will be Remembrance Sunday when the Queen leads the nation in mourning and remembering those who died for us.

 

[elder999]

When I was working at the nuke plant, there was an operator there who'd been a medic in the 101st Airborne-got wounded in Viet Nam, at Hamburger Hill. We all got paid double time and a half for holidays, which meant that if you wound up working 16 hours on the holiday, you got a week's pay for one day-and at a really nice rate for the 80's to boot. On this particular Veteran's day, a few of us were scheduled for 16 on the holiday, and Jimmy-who wasn't- was ranting-he did that a lot.:lfao:

"Did you serve your country? Did you serve your country? All you doily-tattin', quiche-eatin', landscape-painting, Dubonnet sippin's ******s that didn't serve your country should take a vet to lunch for Veteran's day!"

Well, I never had the privelege of serving my country in the armed forces, and thought it was a great idea, so I bought Jimmy lunch, bought him lunch every year after that, and I've bought at least one vet-and sometimes a room full of them-lunch for Veteran's day ever since.

Thanks to all of you guys and gals for your service. :asian:

 

[Archangel M]

I wonder just how many Veterans actually get the holiday off? I work it almost every year while all the non-sworn employees get it off. I get compensated for working it though, so I can't complain too much.

 

[Sukerkin]

It's Armistice Day for us and over the past few years we have gone back to the roots of it and just about everyone in the UK stops at 11 o'clock for the two minutes silence. It's very moving.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11731492

It is indeed very moving, especially if you happen to be somewhere busy at the time. Not only does everyone fall silent but they stop what they are doing too.

I am sure that some must be wishing they could just get on but for many of us it is that little slice of time where we ponder why it is that mankind still wars with itself when the price is so high.

My most memorable personal experience of the Armistice Day silence was when I was on the phone to an other engineer (in Wales he was) at the time that 11 o'clock rolled around. We were trying to sort out a fairly urgent technical problem they had with their automatic voltage control system but when he heard our fire alarm ring once and I heard the site klaxon at his end we both shut up and didn't breathe a word.

Oddly that gave us a great sense of 'connection', one person to another, that sharing of two minutes silence over the phone amidst frantic technical jiggery-pokery.