Veterans Day falls on a Wednesday this year, November 11, 2026. By now most of the posts, emails and promotions tied to it are already scheduled, and some of them carry mistakes that the people they are meant to honor will notice in the first line. Veterans and military families see the same few errors every year. None of them take more than a few minutes to catch, which is the case for checking before the queue fires rather than after.
Get the day right: Veterans Day is not Memorial Day
The most common error is mixing up the two holidays. Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, honors the men and women who died in military service. Veterans Day honors everyone who has served, most of whom are alive and reading your post. A Veterans Day graphic about “those who gave everything” or a fallen-soldier image with a thank-you caption tells a living veteran the copy was written for a different day.
A useful test: if the copy would fit unchanged on Memorial Day, rewrite it. Veterans Day copy should work as something said directly to a veteran, because that is who receives it.
Spell it the way the VA does
The official name is Veterans Day, with no apostrophe. The Department of Veterans Affairs explains that the day does not belong to veterans; it is a day for honoring all of them. “Veteran's Day” and “Veterans' Day” both turn up in ads and calendars every year. Fix it in the headline, the subject line, the image text and the alt text, since the graphic is usually where it slips through after the copy has been corrected.
Check the history line if you use one
If a post leans on history, keep it to what holds up. The day began as Armistice Day, marking the armistice that ended fighting in World War I on November 11, 1918, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was renamed Veterans Day in 1954 to honor veterans of all wars. A 1968 law briefly moved it to a Monday in October, and it returned to November 11 in 1978, where it has stayed regardless of the day of the week. A history paragraph that gets one of those details wrong undercuts the respect it was written to show.
Keep official seals and insignia out of your graphics
Stock libraries and design tools make it easy to drop a service emblem or a unit patch into a holiday graphic. The Department of Defense and the military services treat their seals as restricted to official use, and their trademark offices require permission for commercial use of service marks, in advertising or marketing, including by nonprofits. DoD guidance also asks commercial users to avoid anything that suggests endorsement, and to obscure distinctive markings such as unit insignia and hull or tail numbers when military hardware or uniforms appear in marketing. A flag, a plain message and your own brand are enough. If you do want to use a service mark, the request goes to that service’s trademark licensing office, and it takes longer than a holiday calendar usually allows.
Make offers specific, or skip them
Military and veteran discounts are welcome, and vague ones cause the most friction. If the post carries an offer, state who qualifies (veterans, active duty, family members), what proof is accepted, which dates and locations it covers, and whether it applies online. An offer that turns out to need an ID the customer was not told about lands worse than no offer at all. The same discipline we apply to cause-marketing claims during awareness months applies here: say exactly what happens, and do not imply more than you are doing.
Earn the connection, or let the day pass
The strongest Veterans Day content comes from businesses that have something real to say: veterans on the team who have agreed to be featured, a hiring program that exists all year, a customer story shared with permission. If the only link is the date, a short, accurate acknowledgment is fine, and silence is fine too. What does not work is a generic “Happy Veterans Day” graphic posted between two product promotions. If you feature a person, get their sign-off on the final copy and image, not just the idea.
A five-minute check before it goes out
- Does every piece say Veterans Day, with no apostrophe, in the copy, graphic and alt text?
- Is the message for living veterans, not the fallen? Would it fit unchanged on Memorial Day?
- Are any historical dates correct: 1918 armistice, 1954 rename, November 11 since 1978?
- Are there official seals, service emblems or unit insignia in any image? If so, is there written permission?
- If there is an offer, does it name who qualifies, the proof required, the dates and the channels?
- If a real person is featured, have they approved the final version?
- Has someone other than the author reviewed it, with permission to hold it?
Holiday posts tend to be drafted early and reviewed late, so they go out with errors a calm second read would catch. Put the review on the calendar alongside the publish date; our note on how content gets approved covers where that step sits in the process.
Sources: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Day history and frequently asked questions (spelling, Armistice Day origin, 1954 rename, 1968 and 1978 date changes); DoD Trademark Licensing Guide; U.S. Air Force Trademark and Licensing, The Air Force Symbol; Marine Corps Trademark Licensing Program, Commercial Use. This post is not legal advice; confirm trademark questions with the relevant service office or counsel.