Momilani Elementary School

Nov. 18, 2022

Written by: Amaya A.

On November 10, 2022, Momilani Elementary held a Veterans Day assembly. Veterans Day is celebrated on November 11th, and it is a day to honor the people that served in the U.S. military and those who had died doing so. Honoring these people is our way of saying "thank you" to them, because they risked their lives in order to protect our freedom here in America. Even now, we still continue to thank them for their services.

Momilani held an assembly to honor military veterans that were related to kids in our school. We had students from Kindergarten to 6th grade who had family members recognized at the assembly. We also had 11 students helping out at the assembly from the Momilani Ambassador Program. These students were the speakers, the kids who walked with students (whose family weren’t here, but were being represented), and the kids who gave leis to the veterans.

Mrs. Wakahiro, one of the teachers who helped to prepare for the assembly stated that, "My favorite part is when everyone sings the song "I'm Proud To Be an American" together. It gives me hope that the younger generation will continue to have a sense of love for their country and appreciation of the people who bravely fought for the freedom all of us enjoy.”

Now here is some history behind Veterans Day. Veterans Day first began in 1919, as a tribute to the armistice that ended World War I in 1918. An armistice is basically a truce. It was originally named Armistice Day because of this, but the name had changed in 1954. In 1915, a poem named ‘In Flanders Field,’ was written by John McCrae, after he saw red poppies blooming throughout the scarred land. The poem was written in tribute to the fallen soldiers who died in battle, and were buried under the flowers. A couple days before the armistice, a woman named Moina Micheal also wrote a poem called ‘We Shall Keep the Faith,’ a response to the poem written previously, ‘In Flanders Field.’ She also stated that she would wear poppies as a tribute to those who died in war. This tradition still takes place today on Veterans Day, but it’s more common on Memorial Day.

We aren’t pushing you to follow these traditions, but we do appreciate it when you show your respect to those who could have possibly died trying to protect freedom here in America. You may know someone who is a U.S. soldier or used to be one. Whether you know someone or you don’t, you respect them all the same, because they all have or had the same goal, to protect America. We all should continue to show them how thankful we are and how much we appreciate whatever they did.