"In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: 'To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of  those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the  councils of the nations...'"

"The first celebration using the term Veterans Day occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1947. Raymond Weeks, a World War II veteran, organized "National Veterans Day," which included a parade and other festivities, to honor all  veterans. The event was held on November 11, then designated Armistice Day. Later, U.S. Representative Edward Rees of Kansas proposed a bill that would change Armistice Day to Veterans Day. In 1954, Congress passed the bill  that President Eisenhower signed proclaiming November 11 as Veterans Day. Raymond Weeks received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Reagan in November 1982. Weeks' local parade and ceremonies are now an  annual event celebrated nationwide."

(Source: "The History of Veterans Day," and "The Origins of Veterans Day," The United States Department of Veterans Affairs; http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.htm and  http://www1.va.gov/opa/feature/celebrate/vetday.htm.)

"Thank you."

(Source:  John E. Shields III, the editor's five-year-old son, to his great-grandfather, John E. Shields, Jr., 11 November 2005.)

Among the children struggling with intellectual disabilities, a disproportionate number must do so without a father. That fatherless children are especially vulnerable to mild to moderate intellectual disability stands out as one of the chief  findings of a study recently published in Social Science & Medicine by a team of researchers at the University of Western Australia.

Examining nine years of data for Western Australians with and without intellectual disabilities, the authors of the new study underscore the importance of maternal marital status as a statistical predictor of children's intellectual status:  "Women who had never married (O[dds] R[atio] = 2.18) and women who were widowed, divorced, or separated (O[dds] R[atio] = 2.40] were more likely to have a child with a mild-moderate I[ntellectual]D[isability] than those who  were married."

The Western Australian scholars acknowledge that "marital status has not always been reported in previous studies" of children's intellectual disability. However, they stress that "the increased risk for mild-moderate  I[ntellectual]D[isability] persisted in the logistic regression model" that accounted for variations in social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds. Understandably, the researchers view their "findings of an elevated likelihood of  mild-moderate I[ntellectual] D[isability] with sole parent status" in the context of "higher levels of social disadvantage."