Today is Veterans Day, a federal and state holiday set aside to honor all U.S. military veterans.
Local ceremonies commemorating Veterans Day will take place today at the World War Memorial in Riverhead and at Calverton National Cemetery in Calverton.
The Riverhead Combined Veterans Committee will hold Veterans Day ceremonies beginning at 11 a.m. at the World War Memorial located at the corner of Court and West Main streets.
The memorial is constructed of a 5 1/2 by 6 foot solid granite block to which is attached a bronze plaque containing the names of Riverhead residents who served in the military during World War I. An eternal flame burns atop the memorial.
The memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1920 by Col. Theodore Roosevelt, son of the former president and himself a WWI veteran, in ceremonies attended by thousands of people, according to a newspaper account of the day.
Known as Armistice Day until 1954, today’s holiday marks the end of World War I, which formally came with the German signing of the Armistice at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in the year 1918.
The date was first observed as a national holiday one year later, when President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation setting aside the day as a national day of reflection on the “heroism of those who died in the country’s service” and for “gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.”
Nov. 11 was made a legal holiday by an act of Congress in 1938, which proclaimed it “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace.”
Annual Veterans Day ceremonies will be held at Calverton National Cemetery beginning at 1 p.m. this afternoon. The keynote address will be given by Vietnam veteran Kenneth Rosenblum (U.S. Army JAG), visiting professor of law, Touro Law/Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, veterans and servicemembers rights clinic.
Riverhead schools, Town Hall, county, state and federal government offices and courts and Riverhead Free Library are closed today. The post office is closed and there is no mail delivery. Banks are closed but the stock market remains open today.
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