Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued a proclamation declaring November 11, 2015, as Veterans Day in the State of California.
PROCLAMATION
Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, a holiday commemorating the end of World War I on November 11, 1918. All too soon, it became clear that this had not been the “War to End All Wars” some optimists claimed. After a second global conflict that dwarfed the first in its magnitude of destruction, countries around the world began changing their observance to encompass all conflicts and honor those who served. Our own Veterans Day was established as a national holiday by congressional resolution and presidential proclamation in 1954.
Today, nearly 2 million veterans live in California. Among them are men and women who served in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as various smaller engagements and peacetime deployments. As we remember our brave Americans today, we should consider their valor and suffering in the service of our country and the challenges they face upon returning home. Some of our veterans suffer from high rates of disability, poverty, unemployment and homelessness. We cannot glibly claim to honor our heroes while leaving them to suffer from social and economic ills.
This Veterans Day, let us welcome all our returning veterans with open arms and, as President Eisenhower wrote in his 1954 proclamation, “Let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts will not have been in vain.”
NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim November 11, 2015, as “Veterans Day.”
IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 30th day of October 2015.
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EDMUND G. BROWN JR.
Governor of California
ATTEST:
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ALEX PADILLA
Secretary of State
