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Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: Veterans Day explained...
...never knew this:
"In 1953, an Emporia, Kansas shoe store owner named Al King had the idea to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, not just those who served in World War I. King had been actively involved with the American War Dads during World War II. He began a campaign to turn Armistice Day into "All" Veterans Day. The Emporia Chamber of Commerce took up the cause after determining that 90% of Emporia merchants as well as the Board of Education supported closing their doors on November 11, 1953 to honor veterans. With the help of then-U.S. Rep. Ed Rees, also from Emporia, a bill for the holiday was pushed through Congress. President Dwight Eisenhower signed it into law on May 26, 1954." |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
You failed to explain how the date got moved around for convenience.....What you are saying is some jaybird shoe clerk watered down a holiday America highjacked, a sacred, very solemn day, from Great Britain so commercial enties could have VETERAN's DAY SALES that draw far more Americans to buy discount toasters, Christmas toys and cart loads of sale crap....rather than visit cemeteries and honor real veterans. Ric...I wish you hadn't made that post. I didn't see one Buddy Poppy yesterday....Where was I? I was at the National Cemetary at Arlington. I am a member of Post 44 American Legion...aka The Tomb Guards Post....The Post that supports the troops who walk post on the Tombs of the Unknowns.... Dave Ogden and I placed flowers and little U.S. flags on specified graves and columbarium boxes, to include my Solveig's columbarium box. I hope Al King's expanded invention got his shoe store a lot of Nike sales. Ric, Let ME explain the Day to you....IT IS ON THE ELEVENTH OF NOVEMBER BECAUSE WWI ENDED ON THAT DAY...GOT THAT? It was a BRITISH HOLIDAY FOR BRITS TO HONOR THOSE MEN GREAT BRITAIN LOST...THE DEAD NOT THE LIVING...GOT THAT? It was not a day to honor generic veterans for their service. IT WAS A DAY SET ASIDE FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE...It had nothing to do with the United States, that a large number of Brits felt that WWI party we came to three years too late. The Buddy Poppy was a sacred, very meaningful symbol to the citizens of the UK and still is....So what have we done with their day?...First we highjacked it....Then we started doing what we do best...We started cheapening it, watering it down....bolting stuff on to it, piggybacking every lad who ever wore a uniform into the mix...moving the date all over hell and half Georgia, creating SALE DAYS....Running around telling each other "Thanks for your service" and handing out SUPPORT THE TROOPS trunk magnets at the mall....Yesterday, most of the folks Dave and I saw at Arlington were old...very few young people. I don't know if that fact was meaningful....Yesterday, the citizens of Great Britain were attending church services, standing in town squares, heads bowed while reading out loud the list of their long ago sons who still rest in the soil of France.....They were wearing little red silk poppies....little flowers they ALL fully understood the meaning of...Why? Because Armistice Day...The term that shoe hawker s-canned, IS THEIR DAY....THE DAY WE TURNED INTO A UNIVERSAL GENERIC ANY ERA SERVICEMAN'S DAY.....and the day where we've turned thier poppy into a VFW fundraiser to equate with Bingo games...bake sales...white elephant sales and stag smokers. Ric....FLASH...We have a day called Memorial Day where we celebrate the watime sacrifice of our men and women...Explain this to me since you seem to be in an EXPLAINING mode...Why highjack THEIR DAY and screw with it....monkey with it...change the name, the date and the purpose? Why November 11th? Why take their date, named for the date of the cessation of hosilities in 1918?...Here's an explanation for you...The date is ARMISTICE DAY...This clown, The Buster Brown Clown...couldn't change THAT...unless he had the God conferred authorization to change history....Why did we plant trees? Because the survivors of the combat decimated British units, would return to the trench lines they held and where their comrades died, and planted trees as a symbol of life returning....maybe we should return to ours and leave empty shoe boxes. Hey, there are 365 days in a year....Shoeman could have chosen from 364 remaining and created anything he wanted to honor anything he wanted to honor. But it seems a gahdam shame to take a truly sacred day, extremely meaningful to an ally, to honor their specific era dead...a war where they died in large numbers while we debated whether or not we should participate or not for three years....and turn it into something it was never intended to be. What if Great Britain took our Memorial Day and monkeyed with it? What if some guy who owned a Pizza Hut wanted to turn EASTER...into NASCAR DAY? I started placing flags and flowers on graves and columbarium boxes early in the morning and finished in late afternoon...Post 44 placed a wreath on the original TOMB of the UNKNOWN SOLDIER at 4PM.....I missed the sale at K-MART....Damn Al King. DEX |
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Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
all I did was cut and paste. Reread it. It says non of what you just said. Take deep breath. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
Dex, welcome to the World. Every day of rememberance gets messed with. No need to climb up Ric's back--Got it! Look what damn near every country in the world has done to Christmas. |
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Crew
Posts: 57
| Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
Shamelessly stolen from Whalen from about a month or so ago.
On November 10th in 1775 the Marine Corps was formed at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia.The morning they started signing people up any new recruit was given a free tankard of rum.They didn't get as many recruits as they wanted. So around noon they announced that from now on all new recruits would get two tankards of rum.In the back ranks, Dex said, "We didn't have it that good in the Old Corps" |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 561
| Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
Must have been the booze speaking.
T.Spoon, DBF |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 539
Location: Palm Bay, Florida | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
"You failed to explain how the date got moved around for convenience."
When has the date ever been changed Dex? It's always been the 11th day of the 11th month. Perhaps you are mixing up Veteran's Day with Memorial Day, or as it was called when I was a kid, Decoration Day. My oldest daughter was born on Memorial Day in 1959. (Yep, she will be 50 next year, so I'm really an old phart.) For many years she thought the schools were closed because it was her birthday. Then the advocates of "long weekends" got involved and made it one of the "Monday Holidays." |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 566
Location: Inyokern, Ca. | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
November 7th 1919, King George declares Remembrance Day a holiday (on 11/11) to remember those killed in WWI.
November 12th 1919 President Wilson proclaims Armistice Day, to remember those killed in WWI.
Seven years later Congress passes a resolution to move the observance to 11/11, it was made a legal holiday in 1938.
Its' name was changed to Veterans Day, to honor all of our Veterans in 1954.
No hyperbole, just facts.
BB |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
Ralph, I am so happy to find that you've appointed yourself the official greeter to welcome people to the world...Thank you....Now we have Wal-Mart greeters and Ralph Luther who welcomes folks to the world...Aren't we lucky? Next...It is amazing how this knit picking mob missed the entire point....I don't go zippity doo-dahing to research things on the internet, so sometimes I louse a fact up...You are right in Great Britian it is referred to as REMEMBRANCE DAY....The rest of my post came from my head and heart....Knit pick the s**t out of it until your tiny hearts are content...Our VETERAN' DAY is a commercialized , make-it-anything-you-want toss everyone in the same basket, jamboree. A sad remake of the British EMEMBRANCE DAY...I understand that most of you could give less of a damn...I've seen that here for years. Superficial patriotism of forwarded photographs....replicated posts....sloganeering....and politically correct "me too" pile-ons. I am sitting here looking at both Washington DC major newspapers....loaded with VETERAN'S DAY sales pitches....Our local rag was filled with Fire Station chicken Bar-B-Q's, a Shriner's Clown Parade, a mall festival, Auto dealership offering you can't pass'em up, great deals, an announcement that a popular Redskin player would be at a sports store signing caps and t-shirts.....and somebody said that Aplebees was handing out free chow....our family takes the day to honor the allied forces (Principally,England, France,Italy and belatedly the United States) who from 1914 to 1918 served in damn near intolerable conditions to stop Imperial Germany and it's lackies from slaughtering civilians and crushing small nations. We don't feel comfortable with your homogenized Veteran's gumbo....And for the record, a lot of the mish-mosh associated with our all inclusive veterans jamboree HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE WEEKEND BEFORE OR AFTER to extend the sale days, and schedule softball tournaments, church picnics and all sorts of other parasitic atachments. I love the way, the people here saddle up a gotcha posse in defense of watered down mediocrity. But, remember, I've been welcomed to the world by none other than, Ralph Luther and I think that conveys a certain aura of magnificance and legitimacy of planetary occupation,...Your Officially Welcomed Shipmate DEX |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 566
Location: Inyokern, Ca. | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
First Dex, thanks for what you did at Arlington National Cemetery.
I am curious, did you only put flowers on the graves of WWI Veterans, or did you honor Veterans of other wars?
BB
Edited by BlackBeard 2008-11-12 3:41 PM
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Mess cooking
Posts: 5
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Another one for Dex. A combination of Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday to allow for MLK day without adding an additional federal holiday. They called it "Presidents day" to commemorate all presidents like I want to celebrate Taft, Harrison, Harding, Clinton, Carter, or Obamma just to name a few. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
Hey Dex, your welcome, glad to be of service, Shipmate. I could tell you were feeling down and needed the boost. Anything to help and old pharte make his/her day. 
Edited by Ralph Luther 2008-11-13 7:41 AM
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Senior Crew
Posts: 186
| Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
Dex,
I still think you should consider therapy.
All my love,
Joe'the'Most |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 602
Location: Visalia, Ca. | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
While I think Dex has become a little too emotionally involved with this issue, I must agree that the tendency of the Federal Government to "adjust" the observance of certain Federal Holidays from a date certain to the Monday or Friday closest to that date, so as to give federal officials and bureaucrats a 3-day weekend, is self-serving and disrespectful of those being honored by the Holiday.
While there may be Veterans' Day-related activities during the week leading up to the Holiday, for me and so many others, Veterans' Day IS 11 November, and Memorial Day IS 30 May, no matter what day of the week it falls on, nor whether the Government decides to move it to make a three-day weekend.
What really got to me this year is that, as an employee of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, I had to work both Saturday the 8th and Tuesday the 11th, so I could not take part in any of the Veteran's Day festivities in our area. 80% of our staff, both permanent and seasonal, are veterans or close family members of veterans, but we couldn't take off 1 day from grading the cotton harvest to honor our Shipmates & Comrades-in-Arms. Bah. Humbug.
At least I got to watch the Fresno Veterans' Day parade on TV at work. Not the same as being in it, though.
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Veterans Day explained...
Don, I tend to agree with what your saying. I would like to add though that The American public has a very short memory on what the purpose is of Veterans Day, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. Millions of people are interested in one thing and that is a holiday thus a day off from work, cook hamburgers and go to the beach.
American people like a quick fix, take a pill and make it all go away. If they can't make it go away, sweep it under the rug. Thank God and goodness there are dedicated people such as the veterans groups and individuals that do remember and work to keep the memories and purpose going. |
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Veterans Day explained...
