Monday, May 25, 2009

MEMORIAL DAY

A yucky day if you one only thinks about the weather. If you are or ever were in any way connected with the military, it was a day of memories. If you are an American, it's a day of gratefulness for those who have fought for our freedom. I recently read about the beginnings of Memorial Day.

Memorial Day is on the last Monday in May and honors those men and women who lost their lives serving their country. What we celebrate as Memorial Day today, began at the end of the Civil War. Family members of the many soldiers slain in battle would visit the grave sites of their fallen relatives or friends and decorate the graves with flowers.

On May 5, 1868, General John Logan proclaimed this day a holiday through his General Order No. 11. The day was entitled Decoration Day and was first observed on May 30, 1868. The northern states celebrated this day every year, but the southern states celebrated a day similar to this on a different day until sometime after World War I.

In 1882, the name Decoration day was changed to Memorial Day, and in 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday to be held on the last Monday of May every year. Over the years it has come to serve as a day to remember all U.S. men and women killed or missing in action in all wars.

"It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when they died, they gave up two lives -- the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for their county, for us. All we can do is remember."
-- Ronald Wilson Reagan
Remarks at Veteran's Day ceremony, Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia, November 11, 1985

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