Remembering The 1st Veterans Memorialized By Veterans Day

In the United Kingdom, Veterans Day is celebrated with red paper poppies pinned to lapels in remembrance of those who served in World War I. The practice caught on after the bloody battlefields of France bloomed with red poppies following the war. Every year British people wear these red flower pins for about a month leading up to Nov. 11, and buying one of these paper flowers funds veterans groups. The U.K. memorializes the end of World War I with purpose and style.

Veterans Day began as a commemoration of World War I, that 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when the guns were silenced and the Armistice was called and peace came at last. After four long years of fighting in the "War to End all Wars," the dead numbered an estimated 9 million troops. Nearly 120,000 were Americans.

Nov. 11 was originally Armistice Day in the United States, though it wasn't ratified by Congress until 1938. By the mid-1950s veterans groups urged Congress to change the day to honor Americans who'd served in all wars, removing the distinctive honor for those who served in World War I.

So here we are now, 101 years after the Armistice of 1918, and many Americans have all but forgotten World War I. Americans reenact the Civil War, salute the remaining veterans of World War II with Honor Flights to the monuments and Arlington National Cemetery and for years have remembered Vietnam War vets with Rolling Thunder on Memorial Day. (That holiday honors all war dead.) But where are the World War I remembrance ceremonies on this important day that ushered in the many wars of the last century?

The nation's capital has a tremendous World War II memorial, a moving Korean War Memorial and an iconic Vietnam War Memorial. The only World War I memorial in the city is a small stone gazebo, dedicated to those who served from Washington, D.C. A new national World War I memorial is planned near the White House, but it's now more than 100 years since the guns were silenced. It's too late for those troops. They're long gone and mostly faded from our collective memory. But, here's the story of one of them.