NEW YORK — Americans marked Veterans Day on Tuesday with parades, speeches and military discounts, while in Europe the holiday known as Armistice Day held special meaning in the centennial year of the start of World War I.
Thousands of veterans and their supporters marched up Fifth Avenue in New York, home to the nation’s oldest Veterans Day parade.
At 11 a.m. — the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month — a solemn hush fell over Manhattan’s Madison Square Park as veterans laid wreaths under the Eternal Light Monument to honor the fallen.
Former New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was a Marine lieutenant, served as grand marshal.
“I learned everything I know about leadership from my military service,” Kelly said.
At Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel appeared at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Europe marked Armistice Day with ceremonies and moments of silence as France opened an international memorial on a former battlefield. The events had special significance because this year is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. Tuesday was the 96th anniversary of the armistice that ended the war Nov. 11, 1918.
French President Francois Hollande placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. Later, he inaugurated an international war memorial at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, in northern France, in the presence of German, British and Belgian officials. The Ring of Memory carries the names of 600,000 soldiers from more than 40 countries who died in the region during the war. Names are listed alphabetically without nationalities.
