Veterans Day 2026 tribute: a silent photo slideshow with caption cues

Veterans Day 2026 is Wednesday, November 11, and the Department of Veterans Affairs says the national ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery begins at 11:00 a.m. that day with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns (both read 2026-10-03). A company that wants to thank its veteran staff can make a short silent tribute: photos that employees chose to share, a name and branch on each card, and a quiet music bed. Because the slideshow is made of stills, Timeline holds each photo, and caption cues write the names without any speech recognition.

The holiday date is also on OPM's federal schedule. Neither page says anything about how companies should honor staff, so everything below is a suggestion.

Ask first, then build

The most important step is not technical. Photos and service details belong to the person, and not everyone wants to be featured.

Slideshow recipe

Timeline treats a still image as a static hold for the length of its slot, up to 200 video slots, with fade or slide transitions of at most one second. For a tribute, keep transitions simple: a short fade, no wipes.

• Five seconds per person for a team of up to a dozen; fewer seconds with a larger team.
• One card per person: first name, branch and years if they agreed to share them.
• A quiet instrumental bed, generated or licensed, ducked under no speech because there is none.
• A final card with the date and your company's name.

Burn the names

Run each held photo through the captions route with a cue. This is the right path for silent clips because no speech means a captions call without cues would fail with a no-speech error.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-captions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: veterans-day-card-1" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://example.com/clip.mp4",
    "style": "slam",
    "cues": [{"text": "First name, Branch", "start": 0.3, "end": 4.5}]
  }'

Handle with care

Do not use generated images of soldiers, flags or ceremonies. A model can get insignia, uniforms and flag details wrong, and the mistake reads as disrespect. Use real photos only, with permission, and let someone who served review the cut before it posts. The name in the code sample is a placeholder, not a real person.

Sume does not post to social platforms or verify service. You download the MP4 and publish it where your team already gathers.