Today in the US is Veterans Day. A day we honor current and former military. In some places they have big parades. In some schools they have special speakers. Many restaurants give vets free meals.
So I’d like to ask, does your country have a “Veteran’s Day” and what special events or accommodations are held or given?
Ex. Do veterans get free meals on this day? Do they get free entrance to events?
Most countries that were involved in World War I have a related day of remembrance based on the anniversary of it’s end. In the US we re-purposed the day WWI ended to include all veterans instead of just observing something like Armistice Day. The occasional references to poppies and the poem “In Flanders Fields” we see come from that historical tradition.
I’ll let the non-americans actually cover their observances. I will say that ours have changed quite a bit. Public awareness and attention seems to have morphed here. I don’t recall the free/heavily discounted meals thing being common when I started in the military before 9-11. I also don’t recall the awareness of the day as much beyond a federal holiday for most people.
I would second this. I’m an Australian but I happened to be in the US on a business trip on Veterans’ Day last year. It’s a way bigger deal over there than here. The most visible feature was, as you mentioned, the discounted or free meals at restaurants. Now my experience may have been slightly skewed because I was in a town next to a very large military base.
Here there is conspicuous poppy wearing on 11/11, but mainly by talking heads on TV, politicians, and school kids. I didn’t see anyone wearing one at work today. 11/11 is not a public holiday here, but ANZAC Day (25th April) is. We do observe 2 minutes’ silence at 11 am.
Edited to add: I’m sure there will have been wreath laying ceremonies around the country, but again, ANZAC Day is a bigger deal, with a dawn service and marches by veterans.
Yep…
In NZ it is ANZAC day that comes closest - and it’s a pretty big deal.
Parades, public holiday, wreath laying etc etc.
With quite a lot of lead-up.
I’m wearing a poppy and do so every year.
We have services of remembrance and a minute’s silence at 11:00 am.
In the UK , we just had Remembrance Sunday ceremonies and today is Armistice Day. This year marking 100 years since the outbreak of WWI, there is a beautiful display of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London. They “planted” the first one on Aug 5 and the last one on Sunday, over 800,000, one for each Commonwealth soldier who died in the war.
Google images for Tower of London poppies to see how stunning the installation is.
In Canada we have Remembrance Day today as well. I don’t think it’s a statutory holiday any more but there is still a moment’s silence at 11:11
Israel is the only democratic country where war is immediate and touches the lives of every citizen.
So veterans day is taken very,very seriously, as a day of mourning.( And it is not called veterans day, because that sounds like you are only honoring ex-soldiers. It is called by the more inclusive name “Rememberance Day”.)
It is a serious day of mourning.By law, all places of entertainment are closed (restaurants, movies, etc).
The major ceremony marking the day is a nationwide moment of silence. At 11:00 a.m, sirens sound , and for two minutes, the entire country comes to a standstill. Everybody stops what they are doing, and stands at attention. Businessmen in conference rooms stop talking in mid sentence, everyone around the table stands up, and stands in silence. Cars stop in the middle of their lanes on the highway,drivers step out of the vehicle and stand at attention.
It’s an impressive sight.
Thailand – or Siam as it was known then – was a participant in World War I on the side of the Allies, mainly to curry favor with Britain and France. There is no Veterans Day-type holiday here though, not on any day in the year. There’s some sort of Army or Military Day in I think it’s January, but it’s not a holiday.
Maybe a dim question: but, is Israel’s Remembrance Day November 11th – or on another date?
Just to clarify, I am an American, but I’m answering for Thailand because this is where I live.
And we got the whole thing backwards. We gave November 11th to the living and the last Monday in May to the dead. So it’s getting too cold for the living veterans to do much on their day and nobody cares about the dead on their day because the pool just opened and somebody’s having a cookout.
Have Australia down as another that participates in Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) day on April the 25th, much the same as in New Zealand. It is a public holiday marked by elaborate ceremonies occurring all over the country. Dawn service attendees will often eat breakfast for free at selected pubs, while veterans can eat and often drink for free. On this day an unlicensed form of gambling called 2 up is allowed and consenting adults will often form into big crowds to play it - literally out in the streets and car parks.
It is a fun, somewhat sombre, unusual day in the calender that draws the people out for many different and varied reasons.
I’m a Brit too.
Remembrance Sunday was the bigger deal of the two in my small home town. On the 11th November many would stop and be silent at 11am (I’m pretty sure we did this in school too, but I can’t be sure as it was a while ago). On Remembrance Sunday we’d have a parade through town with veterans, Scouts and whatnot to the war memorial. Where there’d be speeches and prayers. There was also a church service which I always found a bit weird as it was in a Church of England church and I was brought up Catholic.
Pretty much every town has a war memorial in the UK. You can search them here. This was my local one.
It’s in spring, the day before Independence Day (it’s based on the Hebrew calendar, so it changes from year to year). You honor the fallen before celebrating what they died for.
Wasn’t it originally Armistice Day, at least in the U.S.? I guess WWII changed that?
Nope - there’s some acknowledgement of the Commonwealth Poppy Day concept, but it’s only limited to a small community
Not that I’m aware of. You have to be aware that any military veteran here of greater than WWII vintage would actually have been on the bad, and losing, side of history. Not a lot of call to commemorate that.
Here’s pictures of Remembrance Sunday this year, attended by the entire royal family, heads of the armed forces, high commissioners from all the commonwealth countries plus 1000s of former servicemen and their families. It’s a really big deal.
Here’s the poppies at the Tower.
A couple minutes silence at 11 today brings this year’s remembrance to an end. It’s a sober occasion, and servicing soldiers don’t get freebies or anything like that. It’s about remembering those who have died.
Canada here, and it’s the same here.
This year has seen a run on poppies since we had two members of the Canadian Forces killed in the last few weeks by murders/terrorists/crazies. One of those killed was standing as Honour Guard at the War Memorial in Ottawa, so I expect that site will be especially well attended this morning.
The British Legion sell poppies on the runup to Remembrance Day, and last year raised £39 million for their activities supporting Armed Forces and their families.
November 11 is a holiday, in France.
There’s typically a ceremony around the “monument to the dead”, that can be found in pretty much every village in France. Representants of civil and military authorities are present along with veterans, flowers are brought, some speech is made,etc…
For instance, in Paris, the president bring flowers to the Arc de Triomphe. When I was a kid, in a small village, the mayor, after depositing flowers, would make a roll call of the dead, which is a long list for WWI (assume significantly more than one by existing house), with people and children answering “mort pour la France” (died for France) after each name.
I learned two days ago that there’s no holiday nor well known ceremony in Italy. The person I was talking with didn’t know november 11 marked the end of WW1, in fact.
ETA, upon reading Double Foolscap post : in France, blue Cornflowers are sold. (blue because of the French WWII uniform, and apparently cornflowers, like poppies, kept growing on battlefields).