Oak Ridge Today

Veterans/Armistice Day observed on Wednesday at Civic Center

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A Veterans/Armistice Day observance will be held on Wednesday, November 11, at 11 a.m. in Meeting Rooms A/B in the Oak Ridge Civic Center. Veterans and members of the public are invited to attend the program, which will feature music, reflections, and poetry to celebrate peace and to honor those who have served our country in the military.

If you were born after 1960, there is a good chance you don’t know that November 11 is Armistice Day, as well as Veterans Day. Armistice Day celebrates the coming of peace at the end of World War I, once optimistically referred to as “The War To End All Wars.” It became an official U.S. holiday in 1926 and is still celebrated in Europe at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to commemorate the signing of the armistice at that moment in 1918.

Veterans Day was established as a U.S. holiday by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954 to honor all those who had served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Ever since, Armistice Day has been overshadowed in the U.S. [Read more…]

Opinion: A thought about promoting war at a time of solemn remembrance

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To Members of City Council:

The idea of emphasizing weapons of war in the fall around November 11 is highly ironic since Armistice Day originated in the desire for peace and the hope that the First World War was fought to end all wars.

November 11 originally was to remember an entire generation which was wiped out by war. Poppies were worn in hopes there would be no more war.

I have to say that trying to co-opt this solemn time of remembrance in order to show off expensive war toys is highly offensive.

Virginia M. Jones

Oak Ridge

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