What Is Veterans Day? Civics Question 128

It is a holiday to honor people who have served in the U.S. military.

Question 128 asks what Veterans Day is. Two answers are accepted: “a holiday to honor people in the U.S. military,” and “a holiday to honor people who have served in the U.S. military.” Veterans Day falls on November 11, and it is one of the national holidays that can also answer question 126.

What a Veteran Is

A veteran is someone who served in the armed forces of the United States. War or peacetime, one term or thirty years, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard or Space Force. Service is the whole test of the word.

The date comes from the First World War. The fighting stopped on November 11, 1918, and the country marked the anniversary as Armistice Day. The name later changed to Veterans Day so the holiday would honor everyone who has served, in every war and in peacetime, rather than the veterans of one war.

Veterans Day Is Not Memorial Day

These two questions come one after the other, and they are the pair applicants mix up most.

• Veterans Day honors people who served, and most of them are still living.
• Memorial Day honors service members who died.

The whole difference is one word. Served, died. Learn the pair as a pair and neither question can catch you.

How to Remember Veterans Day

Veterans Day is the day you can walk up to somebody and say thank you. The people it honors are here. On Memorial Day there is nobody left to thank, and that is the difference the two questions are testing.

The date helps too. November 11 is written 11/11, four ones in a row, and it does not move to a Monday the way some holidays do. A fixed date for the people who served, the last Monday in May for the people who died.

Common Ways People Get This Wrong

The frequent miss is giving the Memorial Day answer here and saying Veterans Day honors those who died in service. That answer belongs to question 127.

Some applicants also limit the answer to soldiers who fought in a war. Veterans Day covers everyone who served, including people who never saw combat.

What to Say on Test Day

Say “a holiday to honor people who have served in the U.S. military.” Then stop.

You do not need the date, the armistice, or the branches of the military. Say who is honored and let the officer mark it.