Memorial Day and Veterans Day Tribute Salute
To Our Troops
May 2011 -- An inspiring artistic
tribute to America's brave Military ... and
their fallen comrades by Jeremiah Warren.
Memorial Day is a
United States federal holiday observed on the last
Monday of May. Formerly known as
Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. soldiers who died
while in the military service. First enacted to honor
Union and Confederate soldiers following the American
Civil War, it was extended after World War I to honor
Americans who have died in all wars.
Memorial Day
often marks the start of the summer vacation season, and
Labor Day its end.
Begun as a ritual of
remembrance and reconciliation after the civil war, by
the early 20th century, Memorial Day was an occasion for
more general expressions of memory, as ordinary people
visited the graves of their deceased relatives, whether
they had served in the military or not.
Veterans
Day is an annual United States holiday honoring military
veterans. A federal holiday, it is observed on November
11. It is also celebrated as Armistice Day or
Remembrance Day in other parts of the world, falling on
November 11, the anniversary of the signing of the
Armistice that ended World War I. (Major hostilities of
World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the
11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German
signing of the Armistice.)
The holiday is
commonly printed as Veteran's Day or Veterans' Day in
calendars and advertisements. While these spellings are
grammatically acceptable, the United States government
has declared that the attributive (no apostrophe) rather
than the possessive case is the official spelling.
