War dead and veterans

🇹🇼How does Taiwan mark War dead and veterans?軍人節

Taiwan's Armed Forces Day falls on 3 September, listed among the festivals in Article 5 of the Act on Commemorative Days and Holidays. What makes it unusual is the leave rule: Article 6 of the same act says the day off is "as the Ministry of National Defence provides" — so it is not a public holiday at all but a day the defence ministry may grant to serving personnel, while everyone else works and goes to school as normal. The 3 September date belongs to the commemoration of victory in the war against Japan; Article 3 of the same act separately lists 15 August as War's End Commemoration Day, a commemorative day rather than a festival, and also without leave. Taiwan therefore has two dates and two legal positions here, and neither is a day off for the public.

law.moj.gov.tw ↗mnd.gov.tw ↗

🇨🇳How does China mark War dead and veterans?烈士纪念日

China's Martyrs' Day falls on 30 September, established by a decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on 31 August 2014, with the date deliberately placed the day before National Day. On the morning itself, flower baskets are laid at the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square, with the party and state leadership present. It is not a day off. Earlier the same year, on 27 February 2014, the same Standing Committee separately designated 3 September as Victory Day of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression — one body, one year, two related days: one for those who died, one for the war ending. Neither carries leave.

gov.cn ↗npc.gov.cn ↗

🇮🇩How does Indonesia mark War dead and veterans?Hari Pahlawan

Indonesia's Heroes' Day falls on 10 November, for the Battle of Surabaya in 1945. Its legal position is stated with unusual precision: Presidential Decree 316 of 1959 places it among the national days that are not holidays (hari-hari nasional yang bukan hari libur) — Indonesian law keeps "national day" and "public holiday" as two distinct categories, and Heroes' Day belongs to the first. Government offices and schools hold flag ceremonies; the President leads the national grave pilgrimage, laying flowers at the Kalibata Heroes' Cemetery. Indonesia has not forgotten to give the day off; the rule says in so many words that the day is to be marked without stopping.

setkab.go.id ↗

🇺🇸How does United States mark War dead and veterans? · Veterans Day

Veterans Day is for the living. It is fixed to 11 November — the hour the First World War guns stopped in 1918, at eleven in the morning — and was called Armistice Day until 1954, when the object of the day widened from one war's ceasefire to everyone who has served. Its date has a history of its own: the 1968 Monday holiday law moved it to the fourth Monday in October, but the meaning of this day is tied to that particular hour, states objected, and Public Law 94-97 put it back on 11 November in 1975. Americans mix the two days up constantly, and veterans' organisations spend every November explaining the difference: you thank a living veteran for their service today; you stand in silence for the dead in May.

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govinfo.gov ↗opm.gov ↗

🇺🇸How does United States mark War dead and veterans? · Memorial Day

The United States is the only one of these seven countries that separates mourning the dead from thanking the living. Memorial Day falls on the last Monday in May, written into the list of legal public holidays at 5 U.S.C. § 6103; federal offices and most state governments close. It was a fixed 30 May until the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 moved it, along with several others, onto a Monday — which also turned it into the long weekend that opens the American summer. That is an argument the country has never settled: does a three-day weekend get more people to the cemetery, or does it turn a day of mourning into barbecues and mattress sales? The national ceremony is at Arlington National Cemetery, with a minute of silence at 11 a.m.

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govinfo.gov ↗opm.gov ↗

🇮🇳How does India mark War dead and veterans?Kargil Vijay Diwas

India's day is tied to one specific war. Kargil Vijay Diwas on 26 July marks the end of the 1999 Kargil conflict, fought from March to 26 July, when the army retook the heights of the Kargil–Drass sector in Operation Vijay. The main ceremony is at the Kargil War Memorial at Drass, with separate observances by each command. It is not a holiday. India also keeps 7 December as Armed Forces Flag Day, observed since 1949 and working quite differently: small flags are distributed to the public and donations collected in return, funding welfare for disabled ex-servicemen, war widows and the children of the fallen. It is a fundraising day as much as a day of remembrance.

static.pib.gov.in ↗static.pib.gov.in ↗

🇯🇵How does Japan mark War dead and veterans?戦没者を追悼し平和を祈念する日

Japan's 15 August has no statute behind it. Its formal name is the Day to Mourn the War Dead and Pray for Peace, and its basis is a cabinet decision of 13 April 1982 — not the Act on National Holidays. It is therefore not a day off: shops open, offices work. The government holds the National Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead at the Nippon Budokan, attended by the Emperor and the Prime Minister, with representatives of bereaved families from every prefecture and a minute of silence at noon. The ceremony has been held since 1963; the 1982 cabinet decision fixed the date. A country's central day of mourning resting on an administrative decision rather than a law is unique among these seven.

mhlw.go.jp ↗

🇧🇷How does Brazil mark War dead and veterans?Dia do Soldado

Brazil's soldiers' day commemorates one man's birthday. 25 August is the birth date of Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, born in 1803 and patron of the Brazilian Army, and that is why the day exists. The Ministry of Defence and the Army run the ceremonies; it is not a public holiday and the country works. Brazil marks victory separately, on 8 May — Dia da Vitória, for the end of the war in Europe in 1945 and the Brazilian Expeditionary Force that fought in Italy, Brazil being the only Latin American country to send ground troops to Europe. So the soldier is commemorated through a nineteenth-century general's birthday, and the war through the date it ended.

gov.br ↗gov.br ↗