Photo: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Happy Veterans Day. Sadly the “war to end all wars” that ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 did not not live up to its billing. Nevertheless, we celebrate the sacrifices made by veterans on this day in the faint but fervent hope that one day all wars will end.

Last May we posted about an unusual way to celebrate the upcoming Veteran’s Day – a basketball game on an aircraft carrier. Today, in San Diego, the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vincent‘s flight deck is being transformed into a basketball court and arena for the Veteran’s Day Carrier Classic basketball game between North Carolina and Michigan State.

This will be the the first college basketball game to be played on an active-duty Navy aircraft carrier. After laying a wreath at the at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, President Obama will fly to the West Coast to attend the basketball game.

The Carl Vincent is a Nimitz class “super carrier” which earlier this year participated on the raid on Bin Laden’s compound. Bin Laden’s body was subsequently buried at sea from the carrier.

Thanks to Alaric Bond and Irwin Bryan for passing the story along.