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President Calvin Coolidge said, "The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten."
Daniel Webster said, "Their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored."
Nathan Hale said, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
And Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, my favorite poet, said, "Yours has the suffering been, the memory shall be ours."
Although Memorial Day, "Decoration Day" as it was originally known, has evolved into a weekend that celebrates the kickoff of summer, hamburgers, hot dogs, family picnics, and the Indy 500, it is also a day set aside to remember.
Remembering why we remember.
Bill Federer and his "American Minute" reminds us that Memorial Day in America, as an annual observance, can be traced back to the end of the Civil War, a war in which over a half-million died.
Southern women scattered spring flowers on the graves of both northern Union and southern Confederate soldiers.
Many places claimed to have held the original Memorial Day, such as:
- Warrenton, Virginia
- Columbus, Georgia
- Savannah, Georgia
- Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
- Boalsburg, Pennsylvania
- Waterloo, New York
One such place was Charleston, South Carolina, where a mass grave was uncovered of 257 Union soldiers who had died in a prison camp.
On May 1, 1865, former slaves organized a parade, led by 2,800 singing black children, in which they prayed, read Bible verses, sang spirituals, and reburied the soldiers with honor as an act of gratefulness for their ultimate sacrifice which gave them freedom.
In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander of the Civil War veterans' organization "The Grand Army of the Republic," called for a Decoration Day to be observed annually on May 30.
An estimated 180,000 Black soldiers served in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Republican abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a Decoration Day address at Arlington National Cemetery in 1871: “We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers.”
President James Garfield's only executive order was in 1881, where he gave government workers May 30th off so they could decorate the graves of those who died in the Civil War.
On Memorial Day, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge stated: "There can be no peace with the forces of evil. Peace comes only through the establishment of the supremacy of the forces of good.
"That way lies through sacrifice," he continued, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,'" paraphrasing the Words of Jesus.
What to remember.
You've probably seen the veterans selling little artificial poppies this week at the doors of grocery stores and other places. You also likely know the story behind the poppies, but just in case you don't. Or have forgotten.
The Memorial Day poem, "In Flanders Fields," was composed during World War I by a Canadian Expeditionary Force gunner and medical officer named John McCrae, who fought in the Second Battle of Ypres near Flanders, Belgium.
Describing the battle as a "nightmare," as the enemy carried out one of the first chlorine gas attacks, McCrae wrote, "For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds."
"And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way."
Finding one of his friends killed, McCrae helped bury him along with the other dead in a field.
Noticing the field covered with poppy flowers, he wrote the following:
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
Takeaway
On June 6, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt offered a D-Day Prayer, which is now part of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
"My fellow Americans: ... I ask you to join with me in prayer":
Almighty God, Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization
Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces ...
We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph ... Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom."
Memorial Day has grown to honor all who gave their lives defending America's freedom in every war, including:
- Revolutionary War (1775-1783) 25,000;
- Barbary Wars (1801-1805; 1815) 45
- War of 1812 (1812-1814) 20,000;
- Mexican-American War (1846-1848) 13,283;
- Civil War (1861-1865) 625,000;
- Spanish-American War (1898) 2,446;
- World War 1 (1917-1918) 116,516;
- World War 2 (1941-1945) 405,399;
- Korean War (1950-1953) 36,516;
- Vietnam War (1955-1975) 58,209;
- Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) 258;
- Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (2001-2014) 2,356;
- Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2012) 4,489; and subsequent wars against Islamic terrorism, securing our borders, and in Ukraine.
On Memorial Day in 1982, Ronald Reagan gave us these words:
In 1863, when he dedicated a small cemetery in Pennsylvania marking a terrible collision between the armies of North and South, Abraham Lincoln noted the swift obscurity of such speeches. Well, we know now that Lincoln was wrong about that particular occasion. His remarks commemorating those who gave their "last full measure of devotion" were long remembered. But since that moment at Gettysburg, few other such addresses have become part of our national heritage -- not because of the inadequacy of the speakers, but because of the inadequacy of words.
I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.
Reagan finished with this:
As we honor their memory today, let us pledge that their lives, their sacrifices, and their valor shall be justified and remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation. And let us also pledge to do our utmost to carry out what must have been their wish: that no other generation of young men will ever have to share their experiences and repeat their sacrifice.
Earlier today, with the music that we have heard and that of our National Anthem -- I can't claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don't know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: Does that flag still wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
That is what we must all ask, too.
Be Informed. Be Mindful. Be Prayerful. Be Grateful.
