America 250

In 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its independence. While this will be the Department of Veterans Affairs’ first national centennial since becoming a cabinet-level department in 1989, its predecessor organizations, including the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, the Pension Bureau, the Veterans Bureau, and the Veterans Administration, routinely participated in national centennial commemorations. Each served to honor the contributions of American Veterans in preserving freedom.

During the Civil War, thousands of women served as nurses for the Union Army. Most had no prior medical training, but they volunteered out of a desire to support family members and other loved ones fighting in the war. Female nurses cared for soldiers in city infirmaries, on hospital ships, and even on the battlefield, enduring hardships and sometimes putting their own lives in danger to minister to the injured.

Despite the invaluable service they rendered, Union nurses received no federal benefits after the war. Women-led organizations such as the Woman’s Relief Corps spearheaded efforts to compensate former nurses for their service. In 1892, Congress finally acceded to their demands.

U.S. Marine Corps Veteran John Philip Sousa was crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner on Christmas Day 1896 when the tune for “Stars and Stripes Forever” popped into his head. Within months, Sousa had composed what would become the defining song for the American flag and patriotism, a testament to how Veterans love their nation and think of home during the holidays.

When the GI Bill became law in 1944, it included a home loan program for Veterans. After several changes to update the law to reflect current market prices and challenges, one area still needed addressed: support for Veterans who were dependent on wheelchairs for mobility. The answer was the Specially Adapted Housing program, and one of the earliest homes built with the grant money was designed by acclaimed builder Frank Lloyd Wright.

At the start of the Great War in 1914, only about half of the 300,000 Native Americans in the United States were citizens. Although the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all “persons born or naturalized in the United States,” it did not apply to Native Americans because they fell under the jurisdiction of tribal authorities rather than the U.S. government

The massive mobilization of industry and manpower with the United States’ entry into World War II lifted the nation out of the Great Depression. But even as the country enjoyed new heights of economic prosperity, American leaders worried about what would happen after the war. In 1942, Roosevelt formed two separate committees to focus specifically on programs to assist returning Veterans and one produced the GI Bill of Rights.

As World War II ended and millions of service members returned home, the Veterans Administration faced the major challenge of not just delivering benefits and medical care, but also ensuring broad public awareness of these programs. The VA Public Relations office in Washington took on that challenge. And, so, Here’s To Veterans was born.

A Togus time capsule filled with objects and historical materials provides a snapshot of a particular time and place. This capsule was found on the Togus National Cemetery in Maine while masons were working on a monument.

President Abraham Lincoln’s famed 272-word Gettysburg Address, cast in iron tablets, was placed in national cemeteries in 1909 as part of a nationwide birthday centennial program. When the popular president, born February 12, was honored again in 2009, NCA began to produce more tablets to ensure the speech is in all new national cemeteries.

As another Thanksgiving is upon us, thoughts turn towards the traditions that surround the holiday, many of them involving food. At the National VA History Center Archives, staff members went looking to see what past Thanksgivings looked like and were rewarded with positive results.

Doris Miller joined the Navy in 1939, on the eve of World War II, as a mess attendant. He was assigned to a battleship at Pearl Harbor, and on Dec. 7, 1941, performed acts of gallantry that earned him the Navy Cross.

When The Best Years of Our Lives premiered in November 1946, the nation was in transition. World War II was over but the process of demobilizing and discharging 16 million service members was still ongoing. The movie depicted the challenges Veterans faced reintegrating into civilian society and it was so powerful that VA leader General Omar Bradley had the movie shown to employees at the central office.