BY KATHY WILLIAMS

HERALD DEMOCRAT

Grayson County residents will honor veterans on Wednesday, first with a procession that begins at the County Courthouse, then with a ceremony at Veterans Field.

In Fannin County, the Clyde W. Cosper Texas State Veterans Home in Bonham will celebrate the day from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The big event in Sherman will begin with a gathering around the Courthouse at 10 a.m., when vintage military vehicles will take on all the veterans they can hold for a procession to Veterans Field at Fairview Park. The ceremony there will begin at the traditional time for honoring U.S. veterans, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

Oren Art, captain of the local chapter of U.S. Navy veterans, sent out a letter to the 43 members of his group inviting them to participate. Since all local veterans likely will not fit into the vehicles for the procession, Art suggests that some veterans meet at the park at least by 10:30 a.m. so they can sit together. Parking spaces are also limited.

Art said that fellow Navy veteran U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall will serve as keynote speaker of the event. Hall served during war time and peace time, Art said. He advised all Navy veterans to wear the club's blue and gold T-shirt and sit together.

All veterans are invited to attend and wear their hats or other symbols of their service.

And the public also is encouraged to take the opportunity to say thank you to the men and women who have worn the uniform of any branch of the United States military services -- whether in war time or in peace.

The motorcade, with vintage military vehicles, offered for the occasion by the Red River Valley chapter of the Military Vehicle Preservation Association, will proceed slowly from downtown Sherman to Fairview Park, 1121 W. Taylor. Veterans Field is near the center of the park.

Ely Park in Sherman, 919 S. Austin, often is the site of observances on Veterans Day as the small park's perimeter is lined with World War II memorials.

In Bonham, Hall also will address veterans during a pinning and flag retirement ceremony from 2 -4 p.m. at the Clyde W. Cosper Texas State Veterans Home, 1300 Seven Oaks Road.

Veterans Day sometimes is called Armistice Day in other countries or Remembrance Day, because hostilities in World War I ceased at that time (11th hour, 11th day, 11th month) in 1918 when Germany formally signed the armistice. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first Armistice Day in 1919 and Congress confirmed it in 1926. Congress passed a bill that President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed in 1954, making the observance a federal holiday, honoring all veterans.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimated Aug. 3, that there are 23,442,000 veterans in the United States of whom 1,802,000 are women.