Editing Veterans Day (section)

==History==
On November 11, 1919, President [[Woodrow Wilson]] issued a message to his countrymen on the first Armistice Day, in which he expressed what he felt the day meant to Americans:

{{quote|
A year ago today our enemies laid down their arms in accordance with an armistice which rendered them impotent to renew hostilities, and gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and more just set of international relations. The soldiers and people of the European Allies had fought and endured for more than four years to uphold the barrier of civilization against the aggressions of armed force. We ourselves had been in the conflict something more than a year and a half.

With splendid forgetfulness of mere personal concerns, we remodeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output, and assembled a great army, so that at the last our power was a decisive factor in the victory. We were able to bring the vast resources, material and moral, of a great and free people to the assistance of our associates in Europe who had suffered and sacrificed without limit in the cause for which we fought.

Out of this victory there arose new possibilities of political freedom and economic concert. The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men.

To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations.<ref name = cmh>{{cite web| url =https://books.google.com/books?id=WYg_AQAAMAAJ&q=%22a+year+ago+today+our+enemies+laid+down+their+arms%22&pg=PA8803| title = Supplement to the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Covering the Second Term of Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1917, to March 4, 1921 | date = 11 November 2015| publisher = Bureau of National Literature| via= Google Books}}</ref>}}

The United States Congress adopted a resolution on June 4, 1926, requesting that President [[Calvin Coolidge]] issue annual proclamations calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate ceremonies.<ref name = cmh/> A Congressional Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U.S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made November 11 in each year a legal holiday: "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day{{'"}}.<ref name= VAhistory />

[[File:Veterans Day parade in Baltimore, 2016.jpg|thumb|[[United States Army|U.S. Army]] and [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] [[Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps]] cadets march during a Veterans Day parade in [[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]], 2016.]]
In 1945, [[World War II]] veteran Raymond Weeks from [[Birmingham, Alabama]], had the idea of a national holiday that would honor all war veterans, living and dead, to be celebrated on Armistice Day. Weeks led a delegation to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who supported the idea of National Veterans Day. Weeks led the first national celebration in 1947 in Alabama and annually until his death in 1985. President Reagan honored Weeks at the White House with the Presidential Citizenship Medal in 1982 as the driving force for the national holiday. [[Elizabeth Dole]], who prepared the briefing for President Reagan, determined Weeks as the "Father of Veterans Day".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://unrememberedhistory.com/2016/11/11/raymond-weeks-the-father-of-veterans-day/ | title=Raymond Weeks: The Father of Veterans Day | publisher=| website= UnrememberedHistory.com | first=Ken | last=Zurski | date=November 11, 2016 | access-date=November 9, 2017}}</ref>

US Representative [[Edward Herbert Rees|Ed Rees]] from [[Emporia, Kansas]], presented a bill establishing the holiday through Congress. President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], also from Kansas, signed the bill into law on May 26, 1954. It had been eight and a half years since Weeks held his first Armistice Day celebration for all veterans.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Carter |first=Julie |title=Where Veterans Day began |journal=VFW Magazine |date=November 2003 |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LIY/is_3_91/ai_110734282 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120714045910/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LIY/is_3_91/ai_110734282 |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 14, 2012 |publisher=Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States}}</ref>

Congress amended the bill on June 1, 1954, replacing "Armistice" with "Veterans," and it has been known as Veterans Day since.<ref name=VAhistory>{{cite web |url=http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp |title=History of Veterans Day |publisher=United States Department of Veterans Affairs |date=November 26, 2007 |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20060728130527/http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp |archive-date=July 28, 2006 |url-status=dead |access-date=November 6, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |access-date=November 1, 2007 |url=http://www.history.army.mil/html/reference/holidays/vetsday/vetshist.html |title=The History of Veterans Day |website= history.army.mil |publisher=United States Army Center of Military History (CMH) |date=October 3, 2003 |archive-date=November 12, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111112073053/http://www.history.army.mil/html/reference/holidays/vetsday/vetshist.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The National Veterans Award was also created in 1954. Congressman Rees of Kansas received the first National Veterans Award in [[Birmingham, Alabama]], for his support in offering legislation to make Veterans Day a federal holiday.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-11-11|title=VETERANS DAY – November 11, 2021|url=https://nationaltoday.com/veterans-day/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=NationalToday.com | publisher= |language=en-US}}</ref>

Although originally scheduled for celebration on November 11 of every year, starting in 1971 in accordance with the [[Uniform Monday Holiday Act]], Veterans Day was moved to the fourth Monday of October (October 25, 1971;<ref name=oldvets>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=g-9LAAAAIBAJ&pg=6104%2C3665371 |work=Spokesman-Review |location=Spokane, Washington |agency=Associated Press |title=Older vets fight to keep Nov. 11 Armistice Day |date=November 11, 1971 |page=14, Northtown }}</ref> October 23, 1972; October 22, 1973; October 28, 1974; October 27, 1975; October 25, 1976, and October 24, 1977). In 1978, it was moved back to its original celebration on November 11. While the legal holiday remains on November 11, if that date happens to be on a Saturday or Sunday, then federal government employees and a number of organizations will instead take the day off on the adjacent Friday or Monday, respectively.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/federal-holidays/ |title=Federal Holidays |publisher= US Office of Personnel Management |website= opm.gov |access-date=2021-11-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211110220110/https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/federal-holidays/ |archive-date=November 10, 2021 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all }}</ref>