Town honors military members with Veterans Day ceremony
West Milford. The township joined the rest of the nation Monday to honor members of the military on Veterans Day.
| 12 Nov 2019 | 12:09
About two dozen people joined township officials and representatives from the local American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars posts for its annual Veterans Day ceremony on Monday.
The annual service, held each year at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11 at the veterans’ memorial in front of the municipal building on Union Valley Road, included speeches by Township Council President Peter McGuinness and representatives from two township veteran organizations.
The ceremony, initially called Armistice Day, commemorates the cease fire that effectively ended World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, according to the U.S. Department of Defense website.
The war officially ended seven months later with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June of 2019.
Where Memorial Day honors veterans that lost their lives in war, Veterans Day honors both the living and the dead who served in the nation’s military.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the holiday became official in 1938, and was expanded in 1954 following World War II and the Korean War to honor veterans of all wars.