Memorial Day: lest we forget those who died for our freedoms

For some, “Memorial Day” means “Fun Three-Day Weekend.” It comes in late May, when days are long and green, a preview of summer. Indeed, for lots of families, the holiday kicks off a glorious season of barbecues, swimming, and other outdoor fun.

But the true meaning of Memorial Day goes much deeper than this. It is a somber day of remembrance for the men and women who have died for our country.

How Memorial Day Began

The work of honoring dead soldiers goes back as far as our earliest civilizations. When ancient Athens was caught in its deadly Peloponnesian Wars, for example, Pericles encouraged citizens never to forget those who had died in battle. Their noble courage, he said, was “graven not [just] in stone but in the hearts of men.”

Centuries later, as the United States was just coming through the Civil War, Americans found themselves grieving as deeply as any of their ancient ancestors. Having expected a short skirmish, our nation instead fought a four-year war that remains the single most deadly in American history. Historians estimate that 620,000 soldiers died in the Civil War, a number that surpasses U.S. losses in World War I (115,000 dead) and World War II (318,000) combined. These losses were all the more heartbreaking because it was not uncommon for families to have sons or cousins fighting on opposite sides. And when they did fall on the battlefield, it could take weeks and months to locate the dead and bury them properly. And so, wrote General John A. Logan in 1868, by the end of the war, soldiers had been buried “in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.” How would the nation grieve properly, and heal? A powerful custom arose among women and families in towns across the country: honoring the graves of the fallen. On April 25, 1866 in Columbus, Mississippi, for example, women visited a Confederate cemetery to place flowers on the graves of soldiers who had died in the Battle of Shiloh. While there, they noticed unkept graves of Northern soldiers—and the women decorated those graves as well, in respect. Similar commemorations happened across states, both North and South, with celebrations first known as “decoration days.” With his “Order Number 11,” issued in June of 1868, General John A. Logan made the first official national proclamation of a day “designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” Let “no ravages of time testify,” he wrote, “to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

National Memorial Day Observance came in 1971, as our National Holiday Act declared Memorial Day a federal holiday to be celebrated on the last Monday of May, making a three day weekend every year. This is an official day off work, but it is also a time of official ceremony. At Arlington Cemetery, for example, which began in 1864 and today holds more than 260,000 military graves, over a thousand 3rd US Infantry troops will place American flags on more than 260,000 graves, and will maintain a 24 hour honor patrol through the long weekend.

Their work will be echoed across the country. Since 1951, to name just one example, Boy Scouts in St. Louis, Missouri, have decorated military graves at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery; since 1998, more than 15,000 military graves at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania have been marked by candles, again thanks to the efforts of local boy and girl Scouts. 

Likewise, there our countless Memorial Day ceremonies held all across the country like those held in Adrian yesterday and in Butler tomorrow- remember, you and your family are always invited to participate.

So while you enjoy the time off, please take time to stop and remember those who fought so hard for our freedom. And thank you, America, for all the things we get to enjoy in our freedoms- like three day weekends.