Happy Veterans Day!

As most of you know, today's Veterans Day. A day to remember and honor the veterans that have fought for this great country's security and goals. The fact that we still stand here today is thanks to the sacrifice of the millions of servicemen that risked life and limb to secure our country's future. Hopefully, we can put ourselves out of the picture for a moment, and pay our respects to our quiet benefactors and have a private moment of silence for them.

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As a small history lesson, Veterans Day actually started out as "Armistice Day", which only celebrated the veterans of World War 1 at the time. It was first introduced on November 11, 1919 when President Woodrow Wilson first introduced "Armistice Day" as a holiday for the American people to honor it's World War 1 Veterans. However, it took almost 19 years before "Armistice Day" was proclaimed a legal holiday. What took so long?

Painting depicting the signing of the armistice with Germany.

15 years later on 1953, a humble Kansas man named Alvin King thought that it would be a better idea to honor all the veterans in history instead of just a single war's veterans. Alvin decided to begin a campaign to change Armistice Day to "All" Veterans Day. Thankfully, the Emporia Chamber of Commerce decided to support the cause after finding 90% of their Emporia merchants as well as the Board of Education willingness to close their doors on November 11 for this holiday. Only a year later on 1954, with help from U.S. Rep. Ed Rees, the bill for Veterans Day was thrown into Congress and bounced onto the President Dwight D. Eisenhower's lap. It was signed into law on May 26, 1954 and put into effect on June 1st.

So now that you know how the holiday was created and because you probably know a thing or two about American history, instead of treating this day as just another "vacation" day, let's remember the men and women that have fought and are still fighting for our past, present and future security.

Boo-yah!

Did You Know: While "Veteran's Day" and "Veterans' Day" are both grammatically acceptable, the United States government declared that "Veterans Day" shall be the official spelling.