Douglas Alexander: “Today is Veterans Day. It is a time to pay tribute to those who have fought for our freedom and made us the Nation we…”

“Today is Veterans Day. It is a time to pay tribute to those who have fought for our freedom and made us the Nation we are today. On November 11, 1919, Veterans Day began as Armistice Day. It marked the first anniversary of the cease-fire agreement among the Allied powers and Germany to end World War I. It was also to honor the men and women who sacrificed during that conflict. In 1926, a congressional resolution officially named Armistice Day in the United States. It became a national holiday 12 years later. In 1954, Congress passed a law to change the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day to honor veterans of all U.S. wars. As I think about our veterans and all they have sacrificed, I am reminded of a day 6 months ago when I visited Madisonville, TN, to see and participate in the raising of the largest American flag in our State--1,800 square feet. It was really an awful day. The rain was coming down, there was lightning and thunder, but hundreds of people stood there to participate in that ceremony because we knew we were enduring much less in that rain and in that lightning than men and women from Tennessee who are serving in Afghanistan or Iraq, or had served on the beaches of Normandy, or in the rice fields of Vietnam. Tennessee is the Volunteer State. From the battle of King's Mountain in the Revolutionary War, through the Mexican War, the Civil War, and our World Wars, Tennesseans have volunteered.”