Given that this post will appear two days before the official Veterans’ Day holiday, it is legitimate to ask when we, as a nation, began celebrating the contributions of those who have served before or after we became a country.

The holiday and date we are about to celebrate was picked because World War I (the War to End All Wars until World War II began) ended at the end of the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. In calendar terms, November 11th, 1918, is the official end of World War I.

In the beginning, it was called Armistice Day and became an official holiday on June 4th, 1926, when President Calvin Coolidge declared it a day to honor those who served in World War I. In 1956, in the aftermath of World War II, President Eisenhower ordered that Armistice Day be changed to Veterans’ Day to honor the contributions of American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen throughout our history.

Looking back in time, did we celebrate the contribution of veterans before 1926 or 1954? The answer is yes. So, when did it start?

The concept of national holidays and days off is a relatively recent one. Back in the early days of the Thirteen Colonies life in the 1600 and 1700s was very hard compared to 2025. There was no electricity, or running water, or sanitation, or interstate highways, or supermarkets much less cars and airplanes. If you wanted chicken for dinner, you went out to the coup in the back, caught a chicken, killed it, plucked it, and cooked what you wanted. Any meat not eaten was either smoked or salted because refrigerators and freezers hadn’t yet been invented.

Oh, if you wanted to communicate with someone in Philadelphia and you lived in New York, you wrote a letter because telephones, telegraphs, or email hadn’t been invented. And you chose your words carefully because paper was not only expensive but taxed by the sheet.

The first known monument to men who defended their fellow citizens is Nine Men’s Misery, located in Cumberland, RI. It commemorates the nine soldiers who were captured and tortured to death by Narragansett Indians on March 26th, 1676. The stone monument was erected that year and still exists.

In 1777, a statute was created to commemorate General Richard Montgomery’s service and placed in St. Paul’s Chapel, 209 Broad Street in Manhattan. Montgomery was killed while leading the invasion of Quebec during the American Revolution.

The Navy claims that the oldest military monument in the U.S. is the Tripoli Monument now at the Naval Academy. Giovanni Micali completed it in Livorno, Italy in 1806 and it was brought back to the U.S. on U.S.S. Constitution. The edifice commemorates those who served and sacrificed their lives in the Barbary Pirates War. After a sojourn in the Capitol Building and the Washington Navy Yard, the statute was moved to the grounds of the Naval Academy in 1860 where it sits today.

In the National Cemetery in St. Augustine, FL, there are the Dade Pyramids. These are where the remains of 1,486 soldiers killed by the Seminole Indians in the Second Seminole War reside. The monuments were named after Major Francis Dade who was killed, along with 107 of his men, on December 28th, 1835.

The point of this post is that we should honor and celebrate those who are willing to risk their lives for our country and preserve our freedoms. Their sacrifices should never be forgotten.

Vidor photo of Jean-Jacques Caffieri’s monument to General Richard Montgomery.

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