The holiday is celebrated every year on the third Saturday of May, which falls during National Military Appreciation Month and is shortly after VE Day and shortly before Memorial Day. The first Armed Forces Day took place on May 20, 1950.
When President Harry Truman issued the proclamation starting the holiday earlier in the same year, he called upon the nation to, “participate in exercises expressive of our recognition of the skill, gallantry, and uncompromising devotion to duty characteristic of the Armed Forces in the carrying out of their missions.”