Facts, numbers and quotes on this Veterans Day

Thank you Veterans of Coronado and Veterans Everywhere –Veterans Day began as Armistice Day to commemorate the end of fighting in World War I on November 11, 1918 at 11 a.m., known as the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. –Armistice Day was made a legal holiday in 1938, primarily to honor World War I veterans. The honor was extended to all veterans by an Act of Congress in 1954. –In 1968, Congress approved the Uniform Holiday Bill so that Veterans Day and several other national holidays would be bumped up to a weekend to create a three-day holiday. The decision angered many veterans and the original date of November 11 was restored in 1975. –There are approximately 24 million military veterans in the United States. –According to the Veterans Administration, there are approximately 2.2 million living World War II veterans, 900 of whom are dying every day. –Three-point-three million veterans receive some form of disability, and 273,000 are rated as 100 percent disabled. –Approximately 621,000 Americans have died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, some quotes about war. “We know more about war than we do about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” Gen. Omar Bradley. “What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purist joys and happiness God has granted us in this world.” Gen. Robert E. Lee “I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.” Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. “The military doesn’t start wars. Politicians start wars.” Gen. William Westmoreland. “The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.” Gen. George Patton. “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who as seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” General and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a solder dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” Otto Von Bismark. “There is only one decisive victory: The last.” Karl Von Clausewitz “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Plato