Veterans Day Ceremony To Be Held At The Wicomico County War Memoria

(Salisbury, MD)  The Wicomico War Memorial Committee invites the community to join them in honoring our military veterans at a ceremony on Monday, November 12^that 11:00am. The ceremony will take place at the Wicomico County War Memorial located directly in front of the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center at 500 Glen Avenue in Salisbury, MD 21804.    In the event of inclement weather, the event will be held in the Midway Room of the Youth & Civic Center.

The ceremony, which is being coordinated by the Wicomico County War Memorial Committee, includes patriotic music, prayer and remembrance to honor all veterans.

County Executive Richard M. Pollitt, Jr. stresses the importance of honoring our veterans in a statement, “Having just said Godspeed to the young men and women of our local National Guard as they deploy to Afghanistan, I am so deeply moved by the sense of how fragile life is and how fragile are our freedoms.  Thank God we have the brave people in our community who risk everything to keep us safe.  Paying respectful tribute to those heroes is our obligation and our duty.  I encourage all Wicomico County citizens to remember to thank a Veteran at every opportunity.”

Veterans Day is set aside to thank and honor living veterans who served honorably in the military, in wartime or peacetime. Many Americans confuse this holiday with Memorial Day, which honors service members who died in service to their country or as a direct result of injuries incurred while in battle.  Veteran’s Day, initially termed Armistice Day, was created to honor World War I veterans and celebrate the official ending of the First World War which occurred at 11:00am on November 11, 1918.  In 1954, after having been through both World War II and the Korean War, legislation was approved by the 83^rd US Congress to change the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day – thereby making November 11^th a day in which all American veterans of wars could be honored.

The Wicomico War Memorial at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center is a fitting location for this ceremony as the Civic Center is itself a living war memorial to all veterans.  At the outside Wicomico War Memorial, flags from each service branch, along with a United States, Maryland, Wicomico County and the POW-MIA flag now proudly fly over a brick wall displaying bronze plagues with the 187 names of Wicomico County’s fallen veterans from World War II and beyond.  To learn more about the Wicomico County War Veterans Memorial and the men and women it was built to honor visit www.wicomicorecandparks.org/war_memorial.htm.