The University of Notre Dame’s traditional observance of Veterans Day on Nov. 11 (Monday) will include a 24-hour vigil at the Clarke Memorial Fountain, a tribute to Notre Dame’s contribution to military life and a special Veterans Day ceremony.
Cadets and midshipmen from the University’s Army, Navy and Air Force ROTC units will participate in the Clarke Memorial Fountain vigil, standing guard from 4:30 p.m. Nov. 10 (Sunday) to 4:30 p.m. Nov. 11.
“God, Country, Notre Dame,” an event celebrating Notre Dame’s military history, will begin at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 in the auditorium of the Hesburgh Center for International Studies. In addition to remarks from J. Nicholas Entrikin, vice president and associate provost for internationalization at Notre Dame, and a screening of a video, “God, Country, Notre Dame,” the event will include the traditional observation of a moment of silence at 11:11 a.m.
A Veterans Day ceremony will be held beginning at 5 p.m. Nov. 11 in the Carey Auditorium of the Hesburgh Library. South Bend’s mayor, Pete Buttigieg, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, will be the featured speaker, and Notre Dame president emeritus Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., who was declared an honorary Navy Chaplain in a ceremony last April, will be a distinguished guest.
Veterans Day is celebrated every year on Nov. 11 to commemorate the armistice signed at Compiègne, France, that ended World War I on that day in 1918. The guns fell silent at 11 that morning, “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of the year. Traditionally, two consecutive minutes of silence were observed at 11 a.m. local time in memory of some 20 million people who died in the war, and of those who survived them.