Special Edition: Happy Memorial Day!

As our country prepares for the unofficial start to summer on Monday, we must be ever vigilant to remind our fellow countrymen just for what this day stands.  It is to pay tribute to those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country.  This sacrifice helped to ensure the freedom that we love but too often take for granted.  Not only do we take these freedoms for granted, but we also take for granted our servicemen who died safeguarding our freedoms as evidenced by Memorial Day being referred to as the unofficial start of summer. 

 
Evidence of taking our servicemen for granted can be seen by the article about exhuming the bodies of 388 Americans sailors and marines from the USS Oklahoma who could never be identified that were killed in the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in an unprecedented bid to identify troops using DNA testing.  This article came out in April.  Did you hear about it on any of our news programs?  I didn’t.  I have included the link here for you to view in case you didn’t see my post on my personal Facebook page, the Chapter Regent’s Club Facebook page, and the SCDAR Facebook page.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-exhume-remains-pearl-harbor-attack-215209353.html

Did you know that Memorial Day began as Decoration Day and had its beginnings as early as 1866?  I went to the Dept. of Veteran Affairs website, and copied/pasted the history for you to read to learn how Memorial Day got started.

Memorial Day History

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.  Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30.  It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.  The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee.  Various Washington officials, including Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies.   After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.

Local Observances Claim To Be First    Local springtime tributes to the Civil War dead already had been held in various places.  One of the first occurred in Columbus, MS, April 25, 1866, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in battle at Shiloh.  Nearby were the graves of Union soldiers, neglected because they were the enemy.  Disturbed at the sight of the bare graves, the women placed some of their flowers on those graves, as well.

Today, cities in the North and the South claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day in 1866.  Both Macon and Columbus, GA claim the title as well as Richmond, Va.  The village of Boalsburg, PA claims it began there two years earlier.  A stone in a Carbondale, IL cemetery carries the statement that the first Decoration Day ceremony took place there on April 29, 1866.  Carbondale was the wartime home of Gen. Logan. Approximately 25 places have been named in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, many of them in the South where most of the war dead were buried.

Official Birthplace Declared   In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “birthplace” of Memorial Day.  There, a ceremony on May 5, 1866, honored local veterans who had fought in the Civil War.  Businesses closed and residents flew flags at half-staff.  Supporters of Waterloo’s claim say earlier observances in other places were either informal, not community-wide or one-time events.

By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation.  State legislatures passed proclamations designating the day, and the Army and Navy adopted regulations for proper observance at their facilities.

It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars.  In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day.  It was then also placed on the last Monday in May, as were some other federal holidays.

Just what did Decoration Day mean  Gen. Logan’s order for his posts to decorate graves in 1868 “with the choicest flowers of springtime” urged: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. ... Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners.  Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

The crowd attending the first Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery was approximately the same size as those that attend today’s observance, about 5,000 people.  Then, as now, small American flags were placed on each grave — a tradition followed at many national cemeteries today.  In recent years, the custom has grown in many families to decorate the graves of all departed loved ones.

The origins of special services to honor those who die in war can be found in antiquity. The Athenian leader Pericles offered a tribute to the fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War over 24 centuries ago that could be applied today to the 1.1 million Americans who have died in the nation’s wars: “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.”

To ensure the sacrifices of America ’s fallen heroes are never forgotten, in December 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” P.L. 106-579, creating the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance. The commission’s charter is to “encourage the people of the United States to give something back to their country, which provides them so much freedom and opportunity” by encouraging and coordinating commemorations in the United States of Memorial Day and the National Moment of Remembrance.

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 P.M. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation. As Moment of Remembrance founder Carmella LaSpada states: “It’s a way we can all help put the memorial back in Memorial Day.”

SPECIAL SERVICE for MEMORIAL DAY

For those of you who live near Clemson, SC, I also want to share information about a service on Sunday afternoon honoring Memorial Day at the Memorial Scroll of Honor on the campus of Clemson University on Sunday afternoon at 4:00.   In addition to a wonderful program for Memorial Day, four more names from World War 1 will be added to the scroll.  In the near future, I will do a blog about the Memorial Scroll of Honor.  Even though it is not a DAR project, it is very personal to me, and as a result, I will be posting information about it on my personal Facebook page.  Facebook will not allow me to do a full description; therefore, I will put that information on the blog and the other information on Facebook.

Here is the link to the information about the special day.  This will take a moment to load.

https://cualumni.clemson.edu/document.doc?id=6658

If the links don't work, use control shift L or copy and paste the URL in your search engine.