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Trump Declares Veterans Day as ‘Victory Day’

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President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Veterans Day will now also be known as “Victory Day for World War I,” marking a symbolic shift meant to emphasize America’s military triumphs and global leadership in the 20th century.

Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery during a blustery outdoor ceremony, Trump said he was inspired by other nations’ celebrations of wartime victories and wanted the United States to “properly honor the wars we won.”

“Today is not only Veterans Day, but it’s my proclamation that we are now going to be saying and calling [it] Victory Day for World War I,” Trump said, standing before rows of headstones as cold winds swept across the hallowed ground.

Trump cited France’s celebrations of Armistice Day and Russia’s annual Victory Day parade, saying America had been “too modest” about its own military achievements.

“I saw France celebrating Victory Day, and I saw the UK and Russia doing it too. They were all celebrating — and we’re the ones that won the wars,” Trump said to applause from attendees. “From now on, we’re going to say Victory Day for World War I and World War II. And maybe someday, somebody else will add a few more — because we won a lot of good ones.”

Before delivering his remarks, Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, joined by Vice President JD Vance, an Iraq War veteran, and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.

The ceremony took place under harsh weather conditions, with wind gusts around 16 miles per hour and wind chills below freezing. Trump, wearing a scarf and gloves, saluted as the military band played “Taps” in tribute to fallen service members.

“Our heroes have lived through unthinkable nightmares so we could live the American dream — and the American dream is coming back again, stronger than ever before,” Trump said. “You’ll see that as the next few years evolve.”

Trump had first floated the idea of renaming Veterans Day earlier this year, posting on Truth Social in May that he wanted May 8—the anniversary of Germany’s surrender in 1945—to be recognized as “Victory Day for World War II.” While that proclamation did not materialize, his latest remarks suggest a renewed effort to institutionalize “Victory Day” alongside Veterans Day on November 11, the date of the World War I armistice.

The official White House Veterans Day proclamation, released Monday, made no mention of the new title, though Trump’s public statement appears to make the change ceremonial for now.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

‘Wow’: Biden-Harris DOD Bungles Veterans Day Commemoration With Mind-Boggling Error

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Keen observers noticed something amiss about a Biden-Harris Department of Defense social media post Monday commemorating Veterans Day.

In a now-deleted post on Instagram and X, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office — whose very existence centers on the F-35 fighter jet — shared an image of an aircraft with the caption, “Today, and every day, we thank all Veterans and those currently serving for their service and sacrifice.”

The trouble with the F-35 JPO’s post was not the wording but rather the image. Not only was the aircraft pictured not American, it belongs to an adversarial, communist nation that some living veterans commemorated on Monday fought against in Korea.

Military.com noted that instead of the F-35’s single Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan engine, the vehicle depicted in the post had twin engines. On closer examination, it appears as though the F-35 JPO actually posted an image of communist China’s J-35 stealth fighter aircraft, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s F-35 knockoff.

(Read more from “‘Wow’: Biden-Harris DOD Bungles Veterans Day Commemoration With Mind-Boggling Error” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

‘Squad’ Members Confuse Memorial Day With Veterans Day

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“Squad” members Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Cori Bush (D-MO) appeared to confuse Memorial Day — a day to honor fallen American service members — with Veterans Day, a day to honor those who have served.

Omar posted on X from her congressional account:

On #MemorialDay, we honor the heroic men and women who served our country.

We owe them more than our gratitude — they have more than earned access to quality mental health services, job opportunities, housing assistance, and the benefits they were promised.

Bush posted on her congressional X account:

This #MemorialDay & every day, we honor our veterans in St. Louis.

We must invest in universal health care, affordable housing, comprehensive mental health services, and educational & economic opportunities for our veterans as we work to build a world free of war and violence.

After both received flak from X users for not knowing the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day, they deleted their posts.

(Read more from “‘Squad’ Members Confuse Memorial Day With Veterans Day” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

University Ends Veterans Day 21-Gun Salute Because of ‘Gun Violence in the U.S.’

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The University of Virginia is coming under fire over a decision to change a part of its annual Veterans Day ceremony.

The university will still hold a Veterans Day ceremony on Monday, but it will no longer include the 21-gun salute. It’s a decision UVA leaders say will not change.

The Provost’s office, in conjunction with the colonel of UVA’s ROTC program, made the decision. The ceremony marks the conclusion of a 24-hour vigil by ROTC cadets and has included the 21-gun salute for more than a decade.

“One is that it would be disruptive to classes and two unfortunately with gun violence in the U.S., there was some concern that we would cause a panic if someone heard gunshots on grounds,” said UVA President Jim Ryan.

Veterans like Jay Levine are upset with the decision. Levine went through the ROTC program at UVA and says the 21-gun salute is the ultimate salute to those who have served and passed away. (Read more from “University Ends Veterans Day 21-Gun Salute Because of ‘Gun Violence in the U.S.'” HERE)

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How One Veteran Is Using His Experience Overcoming Addiction to Help Other Veterans

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U.S. Marine Corps veteran Frank Britton is using his personal experience to help other veterans overcome substance abuse and find employment.

Britton, 60, has gone through several relapses over the past three decades but has been clean for more than four years after receiving support from the nonprofit organization Easterseals, which provides services to people with disabilities and helps veterans transition back into their communities after receiving treatment for drug use or other traumas. . .

But despite the honor that comes with carrying a military title, Britton said he feels for the veterans who can’t get the help they need after coming home from war, especially those who fought in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.

“These guys, when they come home, they’re not getting the help they need to endure what they went through,” he told the DCNF. That’s part of the reason so many veterans suffer from addiction, especially now while the opioid crisis is sweeping through the country.

More than 130 people died of an opioid overdose every day in the U.S. in 2017, amounting to more than 47,000 deaths from opioid overdoses that year, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) citing 2018 data from Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). (Read more from “How One Veteran Is Using His Experience Overcoming Addiction to Help Other Veterans” HERE)

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Veterans Day 2018: Never Forget Our Common Bond

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By The Blaze. Monday, November 12th, Veterans Day will be observed here in the United States, which happens when the actual date (the 11th) falls on a weekend. This year it marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, and follows the 243rd Marine Corps birthday. That’s quite a weekend line-up.

Over the weekend and into Monday there are, of course, many memorials, ceremonies, and dedications. There’s a new museum in Ohio. There are discounts and special special deals for vets at establishments across the country. There was even a pretty great reconciliation on Saturday Night Live, which included advice from newly elected member of Congress Dan Crenshaw to tell a vet “Never Forget” — it’s good advice.

Veterans Day grew from Armistice Day, that aforementioned celebration of the end of the Great War, the War to End All Wars, which is now one hundred years, and many more wars in the past. Now it is the day to celebrate those who fought in all wars, in all actions and engagements, who served around the world and over the decades.

Distinct from Memorial Day, it’s a day to remember, honor, help, or just celebrate American military members and veterans who are here with us still, as well as those who are gone. . .

What the members of our military do every day, what they did at home and abroad, in war and in peace, hardly requires explaining here. You probably know a veteran. Many of you are related to one ore more. We know what a veteran is, and we know why to celebrate their day. The stories are all around us. (Read more from “Veterans Day 2018: Never Forget Our Common Bond” HERE)

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Veterans Day: By the Time I Saw My VA Doctor, He Said It Was Too Late

By Fox News. I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. Had I been seen by a doctor sooner, my cancer could have been detected before it had progressed so far. Now it was too late. My cancer was so advanced the VA wouldn’t even offer me a treatment option.

I had joined the U.S. Army in 1989 as a young, ambitious kid. I honorably served my country for 18 years in the infantry and military police. When I took off the uniform, I relied on the promise I would be cared for as one who “shall have borne the battle.” But that promise was broken.

I was let down by government, the country that I served and loved. That hurt worse than my diagnosis. . .

Today, my cancer is in remission, thanks to the willingness of my non-VA doctors to fight for me. I still struggle and endure regular physical pain, but I’ve overcome far more than I or the VA expected.

Unfortunately, I am not the only veteran who has been denied the care they earned. Thousands of others wait months and even years for medical care and have to endure the bureaucratic red tape of the VA’s health care system every day. They do this because, until recently, it was the only option. (Read more from “Veterans Day: By the Time I Saw My VA Doctor, He Said It Was Too Late” HERE)

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Never Bet Against God

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My son’s not a six-footer anymore. After too many parachute jumps with the 75th Ranger Regiment, medics told him his skeleton has compressed by a half inch, and that he’s not getting it back. It probably didn’t do his skeleton (or brain stem) any good to get blasted off a ladder by an improvised bomb, either. Even the routine and repetitive discharge of Army weaponry at the firing range can result in cumulative concussions that complicate questions of free will and moral accountability.

The burdens of defending our freedoms and our country’s strategic interests have never been equally or fairly distributed. But he came home reasonably intact and upright, and is having a great life now as an entrepreneur, inventor, husband and fierce soccer dad on the grassy battlefields of California.

His cousin Jake wasn’t as fortunate. Jake’s mom and dad got his body back from Syria in May. I don’t know much about how he died, but thanks to a remarkably meaty, substantial funeral, and thanks to long talks with his comrades at the wake, I know how he lived.

Not that Jacob Klipsch was ever a stranger to me. I remember him as a freakishly intelligent child. He talked with smart adults all day and I’m not sure he ever learned baby talk. He was so big and so articulate that most people assumed he was much older.

We got back in touch after the invention of email chat rooms. His was a restless intellect. He had not paused from reading broadly and thinking deeply. It was never a superficial conversation with Jacob.

He was at least agnostic, maybe an atheist then. Not a sneering, dismissive secular humanist like I was at that age, but rather a sincerely unconvinced pagan. He wasn’t going to pretend he believed, if he didn’t.

He knew of ancient “god-slaughter” cults with suspicious similarities to Christianity, and was conversant in the Gnostic claims of Roman hanky-panky in the selection of the Biblical canon. I thought he was mistaken, but too smart and inquisitive to stay wrong. He was young, and had plenty of time to sort it all out.

But he was dead by age 36. I felt some panic when I heard he had died, and guilt. Throughout his lengthy funeral, I thought that despite all his virtues and selfless deeds, I’d have to bet he is probably roasting in Hell now, and from now on. We had let the clock run out on Jacob.

But it’s not our clock.

The final speaker at the funeral mentioned in passing that Jake tried to take Communion last Christmas at an ancient Syrian church near the front lines. Anybody sitting behind me at the funeral may have been startled to see my head snap up sharply. It was the only thing I heard all morning that actually matters anymore.

He wasn’t able to get to the church last Christmas, but that’s not the point. Jacob wouldn’t have just gone through the motions. He wouldn’t even consider taking Communion unless he was a believer. I’m sure of that. Glory!

I learned later that he had told his dad that he was operating in “Yahweh’s stomping grounds.” The contested Syrian territory includes Chaldean villages that still speak Aramaic, the native tongue of Jesus. They trace their lineage to Aram, son of Shem, who was on the ark with his father, Noah. It’s from Shem that we get the term Semite. Aram’s brother Arphaxad is the ancestor of Abraham.

Of course it’s ALL Yahweh’s stomping grounds, including the next gazillion galaxies past ours, but I get Jake’s point: Yahweh had worked many judgments and wonders in Syria, according to the Bible. And He wasn’t done yet.

Maybe Jacob was called to Syria, not just to fight for the freedom and human dignity of complete strangers (which God could have accomplished much more efficiently), but for an intimate and unmistakable encounter with Christ, who knows a thing or two about unequally, unfairly distributed burdens. Death was in the offing, but not annihilation. I believe Jacob received something more than a mechanical, algebraic cancellation of sin; he entered the Savior’s lavish hospitality.

I remember the period just before Jacob sought Communion with Christ. It was, for me, a time of unusual spiritual dryness. Now, I like to think of it as a time when the Shepherd left the 99 to seek the lost lamb, the hard-headed one, because He alone grasped how precious that lamb is in the sight of the Father.

Never bet against God.

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Is There Anything More Heartwarming Than a Soldier Returning Early to Surprise His Kids?

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The men and women who serve the United States in uniform make tremendous sacrifices for their country. They volunteer to go overseas to strange, dangerous lands. The call of duty keeps them away from their wives and husbands, their sons and daughters, their mothers and fathers.

But when the soldier returns home, the long waits are worth it. This Veterans Day, we’ve found some of the most touching videos of soldiers returning home to surprise their loved ones.

These creative surprise returns are sure to make you tear up, so grab some tissues.

This big brother drove over 20 hours to make it to his little brother’s pep rally for his football team’s first playoff game. You can see No. 70 rush off the stands to greet his big brother.

And this Army soldier’s mother could barely contain herself when he surprised her at a restaurant. The pure joy on his father’s face is pretty great, too.

Returning from his deployment, the first words this soldier heard were, “It’s a boy!”

Airman First Class Corey Schreffler surprised his gradeschool-aged brother and sister after being stationed in New Mexico for 14 months.

And when this girl was called down to the office, she had no idea her father was waiting for her.

This girl’s Air Force father is a “superhero.” The dramatic reveal of the returning father behind the screen was a nice touch.

Then there were was this soldier who had a pressing question on his mind upon his return. Now this was one heck of a cheer.

US Army soldier Josh McCallum has known his girlfriend Lexi since junior high. She thought he was still in South Korea when he showed up at her beauty school with a ring.

There are far too many happy reunions to tell, but here are some of the best from 2016:

But wait! Don’t forget the furry friends. These pets are just as happy to see their masters:

We should all rejoice with these families and celebrate the return of their beloved service members [on] Veterans Day. (For more from the author of “Is There Anything More Heartwarming Than a Soldier Returning Early to Surprise His Kids?” please click HERE)

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Who Gave Us Freedom of Religion, Press, Speech?

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On Oct. 4, 1924, at the dedication of the monument to the American Expeditionary Forces in Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated: “They did not regard it as a national or personal opportunity for gain or fame or glory, but as a call to sacrifice for the support of humane principles and spiritual ideals. … If anyone doubts the depth and sincerity of the attachment of the American people to their institutions and Government, if anyone doubts the sacrifices which they have been willing to make in behalf of those institutions and for what they believe to be the welfare of other nations, let them gaze upon this monument and other like memorials that have been reared in every quarter of our broad land. Let them look upon the representative gatherings of our veterans, and let them remember that America has dedicated itself to the service of God and man.”

Armistice Day was changed to Veterans Day in 1954 to honor all who have served defending the United States. In 1958, President Eisenhower placed soldiers in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWII and the Korean War.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan placed a soldier from the Vietnam War in the tomb. DNA test later identified him as pilot Michael Blassie, a graduate of St. Louis University High School, 1966, and the U.S. Air Force Academy, 1970. Flying an A-37B Dragonfly, he was shot down near An Loc, South Vietnam. In 1998, Michael Blassie was reburied at Jefferson Memorial Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

On Nov. 11, 1921, President Harding stated: “On the threshold of eternity, many a soldier, I can well believe, wondered how his ebbing blood would color the stream of human life, flowing on after his sacrifice … I can sense the prayers of our people. … Let me join in that prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.” . . .

President Dwight Eisenhower broadcast from the White House for the American Legion’s Back-to-God Program, Feb. 7, 1954: “As a former soldier, I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth – that there are no atheists in the foxholes. They know that in time of test and trial, we instinctively turn to God for new courage and peace of mind. All the history of America bears witness to this truth. Out of faith in God, and through faith in themselves as His children, our forefathers designed and built this Republic. …” (Read more from “Who Gave Us Freedom of Religion, Press, Speech?” HERE)

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Duty, Honor, Country: Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Last Speech to the West Point Corps of Cadets

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…Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

But these are some of the things they do: They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation’s defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

Read more from this story HERE.