We have another holiday and another opportunity for a long weekend with maybe a cookout to celebrate an end to the school year or just a good day to sleep in.
This is one of those holidays that truly deserves to be so much more than just an extra day off. Memorial Day was first celebrated as Decoration Day after the Civil War ended. It was observed by placing flowers and wreaths and flags on the graves of those fallen Civil War Union soldiers.
Observance began in May of 1868. There have apparently been multiple cities (Columbus among them) laying claim to being the initiator of the practice of honoring those fallen soldiers but President Lyndon Johnson laid the discussion to rest in 1966 by proclaiming Waterloo, New York, as the official birthplace of Memorial Day.
As might be expected given its genesis, the South did not celebrate Decoration Day choosing instead to have a separate day to acknowledge Southern losses from the Civil War. That all changed when Memorial Day became inclusive of World War I deaths and the acknowledgment expanded beyond the Civil War.
Memorial Day as a practical matter is the marker for the beginning of the summer. School is out and the summer activities get in full swing from here on until the start of the next school year. It is on this weekend that we commence some of the frivolous activities that our hard-won freedom allows us to enjoy. The picnics and the softball games and the Indy 500 and the vacations are all indicia of summertime fun that officially commences Memorial Day weekend.
We as a country choose Memorial Day to honor and to grieve and to reflect on what our opportunities have cost us. Since the inception of Decoration Day as a formal day of recognition for our battle losses, we have roughly 650,000 of our citizens who have given the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe and our way of life secure.
Though there are other countries that have similar days of recognition, they do not have quite the import our Memorial Day holds. The United Kingdom celebrates Remembrance Day in November as an observance day. Though it isn’t a holiday, UK citizens pause on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. to observe two minutes of silence. Australia and New Zealand celebrate Anzac Day in remembrance of their losses at Gallipoli during World War I. Canada has Vimy Ridge Day which is also a World War I battleground.
For us Veterans Day and Memorial Day are two separate holidays signifying similar appreciation for our military and our freedom, but Memorial Day is strictly for those who gave their lives because we asked them to serve their country. There will be parades and flags and the President will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The poem “In Flanders Fields” is often part of the recognition ritual for the soldiers. It was written by a Canadian doctor who lost a friend on the field of battle and wrote of the poppy fields where the rows of graves were laid.
Inspired by that poem, Moina Michael, an American wrote an answering poem, “We cherish too, the Poppy red that grows on fields where valor led, it seems to signal to the skies that blood of heroes never dies.”
The red poppy has come to symbolize the sacred ground of the final resting place for those who fought in the wars of mans’ making.
I can’t account for it, but on Memorial Day I always remember the famous Patton speech that opened the movie with George C. Scott as General Patton. I incorrectly assumed that speech was a creative version of some stilted thing the general might have said. But apparently General Patton was even more colorful than the movie represented. That opening line was an accurate version of one of his most famous deliveries where he admonishes the troops saying “I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
It seems heretical to think of that quote on Memorial Day, but sadly as long as there are wars, there will be losses for both sides and that is just the plain unvarnished truth. It would seem the most useful way we can honor those who gave their all is to be best we can be.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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