City of Portsmouth Announces Veterans Day Observances

On Thursday, November 9, 2023 the City of Portsmouth Recreation Department invites all Portsmouth veterans and their spouses to a free pancake breakfast from 9 to 10:30 am at the Senior Activity Center at 125 Cottage Street. The Veterans Breakfast is an annual tradition in Portsmouth. To make the required reservation for the Veterans Breakfast, call 603.610.4433.

On Friday, November 10, 2023 City of Portsmouth offices will be closed in observance of Veterans Day. The parking holiday, where there is no charge at on-street parking meters, will be observed on Saturday, November 11.

Joshua Denton, Commander of VFW Post 168, reports that Veterans Day will be commemorated in Portsmouth with a wreath-laying at the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Goodwin Park on Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 11 am. A post-event gathering will take place at the American Legion Post for those unable to attend the outdoor ceremony. In case of rain, the event will move indoors to the Legion.

Post Commander Denton announced that Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Taylor McMaster, an Army Special Forces officer who served the first half of his career on active duty and now serves in the National Guard will speak at the ceremony. LTC McMaster is from Portsmouth, received his commission from University of New Hampshire Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. The commemoration includes a welcome by Mayor Deaglan McEachern, an invocation, and music by the Portsmouth High School Clipper Band.

The parking holiday, where there is no charge at on-street parking meters, will also be observed on Saturday.

Veterans Day is observed at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, to mark the moment the armistice silenced the guns in 1918, ending World War I. Frank Booma of Portsmouth, for whom the Post is named, was killed in France in July 1918; and the Post was formed in 1919 by Portsmouth veterans of that war.