7/7/2023 0 Comments Dream twitter veterans dayAlabamian Raymond Weeks played a role in changing not only how we thought of Armistice Day, but also what we call it.Īlabama native Raymond Weeks, known as the “Father of Veterans Day,” presents a petition to then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. This change in attitude changed Armistice Day. Additionally, military service is something Americans now put on their resumes and take great pride in as part of their self-identification. Indeed, selective service registration was required of all draft-age men from 1940 until 1975 (and resumed after 1980). Before World War 2, Americans rarely encouraged or rewarded military service. After World War 2, Americans saw military service as a good thing. We also changed the way we thought about our military. After such a war and with the dual beginning of the Cold War and America’s new role as a leader of world affairs, we believed we had to stay on guard. Īmericans after World War 2 were less ambivalent. because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations. The reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died. In that time, both points of view clung to Armistice Day beginning with President Wilson’s first proclamation in 1919 that read: They prided themselves on their efforts and on their survival. Here in the United States, former soldiers felt differently. Histories talk about the “Lost Generation” of disillusioned émigré writers who were stunned by World War 1’s ferocity. But just as World War 2 changed how we thought of the nation and the federal government, it changed what Armistice Day came to mean.Īmerica in the years between the wars was unsure of its place in the community of nations and of how it should feel about World War 1. The crucible of war and economic calamity led us to consider the nation to be a cohesive unit and to recognize the federal government as representative of us all.Īmericans acting through their localities, states, and federal government celebrated Armistice Day throughout the years of World War 2 and into the Cold War that followed almost immediately. That experience changed how Americans thought about how we remember those who fought. Where we had fought the First World War for only 19 months and had been forced to invent procedures for waging it on the fly, we fought the Second World War for almost 4 years, using the precedents of the Progressive Era, World War 1, and the New Deal to organize both our war effort and our society. Soon thereafter, the United States entered another world war, which changed almost everything about America. But it took until 1938 for Congress to add Armistice Day to the list of official holidays. From then until 1926, Congress annually asked the president to declare November 11 as a day of commemoration, and afterwards passed an ongoing request. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Armistice Day on November 11, 1919. What, then, is the history of Armistice Day and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier? How did they come about and change over time? And what is the relationship of Armistice Day to Veterans Day that we now celebrate on November 11? States and towns erected monuments to their troops the federal government created two memorials – Armistice Day for the living and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for the dead. But World War 1 was also a time of transition from localism and state-based federalism to a more prominent central government. After all, towns and counties provided the National Guardsmen and draftees that mustered into the United States Army in 19. Commemorations took place in an era when the federal government was less important than states and localities in memorializing AEF soldiers. Given the extraordinary nature of World War 1, Americans had to make conscious choices about how to commemorate their efforts. Although the June 1919 Treaty of Versailles officially closed World War 1 (the US never signed it), the Armistice ended combat. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the guns that had roar ed in the most destructive war to that point in history fell silent.
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