THOMASVILLE – Thomasville Medical Center will continue its annual tradition of honoring all of those who served in the military on Veteran’s Day next week.

At 11:11 a.m. Wednesday, the hospital will hold its sixth annual Veteran’s Day celebration in the Thomasville Medical Center front lobby.

“We have such an identity with our vets because they come to us in our emergency department and they are our patients,” said Linda Hunt, director of the Thomasville Medical Center Foundation. “We see how broken they are. I can’t imagine that our nation wouldn’t every time we see a flag just kind of bow down to our flag because it stands for peace.”

During the Veteran’s Day celebration, speakers will include U.S. Army National Guard 1st Sgt. Mike Floyd, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Evelyn Harris.

Harris is the mother of Joshua Thomas Harris, 36, a U.S. Navy Seal who was killed last year in Afghanistan during combat operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

“(Floyd) is going to tell us from the perspective of a soldier what it was like to fight in war and why we are there,” Hunt said. “He will also tell how important this day ought to be and our entire nation ought to stop what we are doing and honor our veterans on this day because it’s one day of the year that we can do it.”

Hunt also said Darrell Austin, a surgical nurse at Thomasville Medical Center, will sing “God Bless the USA.” She said Austin will provide “beautiful music.”

“He brings the house down with that,” she said.

For the Veteran’s Day celebration, Thomasville resident Matthew Lewis, a former Washington Post photographer who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, has put together a calendar, with the help of several sponsors, that is the culmination of numerous photos he has taken from several of the Chair City’s Memorial Day parades.

More than 1,000 calendars, which will be sold for $10 at the celebration, have been printed.

“There is no part of our community than I am more proud of than our veterans,” Lewis said. “Our veterans .... have given service and died for our country.”

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AT A GLANCE

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What: Thomasville Medical Center’s sixth annual Veteran’s Day celebration

When: 11:11 a.m. Wednesday

Where: Thomasville Medical Center Main Lobby