In Israel we wear stickers with a picture of a Red Everlasting, a wildflower whose Hebrew name is* Dam Hamaccabim* (“Blood of the Maccabees”).
Remembrance Day is a provincial holiday in most provinces in Canada. The two exceptions are Ontario and Quebec.
Here in Regina, there will be two ceremonies: an indoor one at the Armoury of the local regiment, and an outdoor one at the Cenotaph at the main park downtown.
Since it’s snowed overnight, the outdoor one will be cold, but it will be well-attended. Wreath-laying by different community groups, prayers, The Last Post, followed by a minute of silence at 11 am, then Reveille. Pipers will play, and representatives from the different branches of the Armed Forces will stand at the four corners of the Cenotaph, with their rifles reversed. “In Flanders Fields” is often read, as well as the prayer “They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old …at the going down of the Sun, we will remember them.”
After the minute of silence, a twenty-one gun salute will begin in front of the Legislature, three miles away, and the guns will boom every 30 seconds, just a brief reminder of what it was like in the trenches.
The Cenotaph Ceremony is usually short, since it’s outdoors. A new custom that had been evolving in the past ten years is that after the ceremony, people individually take off their poppies and pin them to the ribbons of the wreaths.
Then the crowd disperses. It’s not a celebration, and certainly it has patriotic themes, but the overall theme is sadness coupled with gratitude.
News reports indicate that the attendance at the National War Memorial ceremony in Ottawa was the largest in living memory.
That was the location where Nathan Corillo was standing guard when he was shot two weeks ago.
RIP.
Hearing the artillery salute (is that the proper term for it?) right now in Edmonton.
Just look at Ottawa. Wow.
Remembrance Day always sounded to me like it was a day of mourning, or honoring, the dead–not inclusive of living veterans. (ETA: Posts in this thread seem largely consistent with this, for WWI Allied countries.)
In the USA we have separate days for each; the day for our dead is supposed to be Memorial Day. But they do get somewhat muddled up, plus a couple other “patriotic” holidays often end up feting military too.
The moment of silence is at 11 AM, not 11:11.
Remembrance Day is a statutory holiday in some places in Canada but not others, as determined by the provinces. There is something of a movement to make it a nationwide holiday, one I am absolutely opposed to as I feel it completely defeats the purpose of the day; it’ll turn a day of sombre reflection into just another day to take off work and drink.
Anyway, as it is, it’s a big deal in Canada. My entire office gathered in the cafeteria and was completely silent at 11 sharp as the TV broadcast played Last Post, and veterans spoke of the meaning of the occasion.
After WW1 Nov. 11th was always Remembrance day here. All work and play came to a halt for two minutes and vehicle drivers pulled over and stopped. In the early years they stopped the trains and the buses as well but it put the timetables out for the rest of the day.
After WW2 it was shifted to ‘the nearest convenient Sunday in November’ and Nov. 11th was gradually allowed to lapse. In recent years it has been taken up again.
In the Netherlands a similar silence is held at 20:00hrs on May 4th, which is the day before Liberation Day.
It was Armistice Day in the USA & UK. (And other countries, as well.) When we realized The Great War really wasn’t The War To End War, it became Veterans Day & Remembrance Day, respectively.
The USA already had Memorial Day to remember the dead. It began just after the Civil War & was celebrated by both “sides.” In the USA, both days have become conflated a bit.
Exactly.
Remembrance Day in Europe == Memorial Day in the US. The US day came first, and was already in May. So we took the 11/11 day and made it Veterans Day.
The question that the OP was asking wasn’t what do other countries do on Veterans Day (i.e. 11/11; they do the same stuff we do on Memorial Day, more or less), but rather, “is there a recognition day in some other part of the year that corresponds to our Veterans Day?”
Yep we are the A in ANZAC and as said ANZAC day is a national holiday and is a bloody big deal for some people.
As others have said, we have a similar day in Canada, called Remembrance Day. It’s a holiday for some Canadians, but not all.
I’ve noticed that veteran remembrances outside the U.S. seem very WWI-centric. Which makes sense, I guess, being the first one, but I sometimes wonder whether all the other vets of all the other wars get anything at all.
Bonus question: How many WWI vets are still alive in your country?
I’m pretty sure it’s usually called Remembrance Day in the UK.
We sell cardboard poppies in aid of the British Legion, a charity for those who fought and those who died. It is unusual not to wear one.
You wouldn’t get a discount on your food for being in uniform because it would be really, really, weird to wear a military uniform like it was clothes. The military here do not wear full uniforms when they’re not working.
None known
None, he died in 2010 at the ripe old age of 110. (Australia)
It really would.
Way too needy.
Here’s the Canadian National War Memorial at night on November 11, with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front.
And here’s the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. At the end of the Remembrance Day ceremony, people come forward, take off their poppies, and leave them on the Tomb.
Spain, no. There is a Día de las Fuerzas Armadas (Armed Forces Day), mobile and celebrated in June, but it is not a holiday - it is a “let’s parade around” occasion for those who currently are in our Armed Forces.
Take into account that for our last 200 years our veterans have been either from civil wars or from wars we lost. And for the last 30 or so, military and police personnel can only wear their uniforms while on duty (previously they might have worn it on the way to and from work, but that’s it); the idea of a cop moonlighting as a security guard in his uniform makes our heads hurt. Wearing military dress when you’re neither in the military nor part of some sort of ceremony (or acting) isn’t just Not Done, it’s inconceivable.