Echo9er

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan. It was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war).

It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

The traditional observance of Memorial Day has gone by the wayside. It’s to time consuming. It’s another day for progress and commerce. It’s not important to remember why we remember. Many Americans have forgotten, or chosen to forget, the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. Many people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, not just those fallen in service to our country.

There are a great many graves of the fallen that are ignored and neglected. Many people don’t remember, or even care for the proper flag etiquette for this day. While some towns and smaller cities still have a Memorial Day Parade many, especially the larger ones have stopped hosting them. It’s too much trouble to tie up traffic and disturd the retail businesses.

So, as we go about celebrating sales and having family Bar-B-Que, or going out on the boat, after all, we don’t have to go to work today, here are a few reasons to remember what this day is all about.

Help bring meaning back to Memorial Day.

It really is a quite simple mission. Then again, maybe not.

Your Mission is to send a message of hope to our soldiers and their families.
Your Mission is to honor them and pay tribute to their comrades who have paid the ultimate price.
Your Mission is to ignore the white sales, ignore the electronic “blow outs” and, wait a few days before buying your new car truck or SUV.
Your Mission is to remember that Memorial Day is a National Day of Mourning and Remembrance for the sons and daughters, the mothers, the fathers, the sisters and the brothers who have died so we may live and enjoy freedom, democracy, and yes, even the capitalism that retail companies have used to make profit upon the memories of our dead.

We do not need a Podcast to make it real.
We do not need a protest.
We do not need to Market Memorial Day and make it hip to remember.

Here are my questions to you: Do you accept your mission? Do you accept this challenge to hold this day in reverence? Do you accept this one day as a time we pay tribute to our fallen heroes?

If you think this is just another day off from work, if you think this is the weekend to by that electronic gadget or new car, if you value the sale more than the meaning of Memorial Day, then you are ignoring the sacrifices of those Fallen Heroes who have died giving you those freedoms we all hold so dear.

Will you accept Your Mission? Will you remember our fallen on Memorial Day?

(Credit to Caroline Peabody and her commentary: Memorial Day… Mission Impossible- Maybe a podcast or a protest would help bring attention back where it belongs)

 

Flags In

(Defense Dept. photo by William D. Moss) – Family members of a fallen soldier stand before his grave in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., May 25, 2006, prior to the ‘Flags In’ Ceremony honoring our nation’s fallen military heroes. Active duty servicemembers adorned more than 220,000 grave sites with an American flag. (Click Picture for Link)

 

Arlington National Cemetery

– Looking north along land once dedicated to farming.

 

Arlington National Cemetery

— The Arlington National Cemetery Columbarium provides sheltered courtyards.

 

Memorial Day at Vicksburg National Cemetery, Mississippi

(Click Picture for Link)

 

Normandy

 

Gettysburg

 

Antietam

— The National Cemetery is the final resting place for Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Antietam and other Maryland campaigns. (Click Picture for Link)

 

Vietnam Memorial Wall

(Click Picture for Link)

 

(U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Robert R. Ramon) MEMORIAL DAY IN AFGHANISTAN — U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Wayne A. White plays taps during a Memorial Day ceremony at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, May 28, 2006. White is assigned to the 10th Mountain Division Band, based in Fort Drum, N.Y. (Story)

 

• America Supports You

• National Moment of Remembrance
• Rolling Thunder XIX Ride for Freedom
• US Army Memorial Day Page
• National WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.
• The American Battle Monuments Commission
• Memorial Day Web Sites (via Davis California Virtual Market)
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Speech of 1884
• White House Commission on Remembrance
• History of Memorial Day
• PBS’ National Memorial Day Concert

• The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers
• Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation
• Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs - Memorial Day Page
• Rolling Thunder@, Inc.
• Library of Congress: Today in History (May 30)
• FirstGov.gov: Memorial Day
• Korean War Veterans Memorial
• USASOC memorializes 50 fallen Soldiers during Fort Bragg ceremony

 

– A Rose by Any Other Name: What Memorial Day Means
– Big Dog: Honoring Our Nation’s Fallen Heroes
– Big White Hat: The Fallen
– Blackfive: The Last Letter; Video Tributes
– Laughing Wolf: Memorial Day, Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
– Blue Star Chronicles: Memorial Day Cartoon; Carnival of the Blue Stars; Liberty is Never Free of Costs; A Succession of Honor
– Bos’un Locker Memorial Day Monday, May 29th, 2006
– Castle Argghhh!
– Grey Eagle: On This Memorial Day Weekend
– Hooah Wife: Memorial Day
– Pettifog: Some Gave All
– Sgt Stryker’s Daily Brief: To Absent Friends
– Soldiers’ Angels New York: Memorial Day; We Remember
– Pirates Cove: Let ‘Er Fly
– The Middle Ground: Why Memorial Day Matters
– Small Town Veteran: All Gave Some, Some Gave All
– Iraq War Today has several posts: Here, here, here, here, here, here,and here. The Photo Link to Slate is very nice.
– Darleen’s Place: Google’s Choice on Memorial Day
– Whatsaykyer: Memorial Day 2006
– Wizbang: Remember
– Blond Sagacity: Memorial Day Observance
– California Conservative: Memorial Day Commentary from an Army Wife
– The Gun Line: Memorial Day
– Danz Family: Memorial Day

I will be adding to the above list of Memorial Day related links as I find more links. Check these out. They are ALL very good.

Finally this, via Snake Eater:

What Is a Vet?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eyes. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel — or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s alloy forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can’t tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?

The Vet is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

The Vet may be the bar room loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel in Korea.

The Vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night in Da Nang.

The Vet is the former POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn’t come back AT ALL.

The Vet is the Quantico drill instructor who maybe never experienced combat — but saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines by teaching them to watch and protect each other’s backs.

The Vet is the wheel chair-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

The Vet is the career quartermaster who watched the ribbons and medals pass him by but made certain every needed bullet found it’s way to the front line.

The Vet is one of the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose uncommon valor lies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

The Vet is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket — palsied now and aggravatingly slow –who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife was still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

The Vet is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being — a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

by Marine Corp chaplain, Father Denis Edward O’Brian

“Tommy” by Rudyard Kipling

I WENT into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,—
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,—
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,—
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.

We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;

While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind”,
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind,—
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees!

Rudyard Kipling