Memorial Day serves as a fitting tribute to those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. They died in the service of our country. At a time when we are so deeply divided, we can all come together and agree we owe them so much. We should never forget what they did. There is a history here as to why and how this holiday was created and it is worth repeating.
The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. There are many different stories surrounding the Memorial Day observance. Some records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865.By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
Many cities and people have claimed to have first celebrated the event. In 1868, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic called for a “Decoration Day,” which was widely celebrated. By 1890, every Northern state had adopted it as a holiday.
According to the Veterans Administration, in 1869, the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization made up of Union veterans, established “Decoration Day” on May 30, 1868. It was a day to decorate the graves of those who had died in the Civil War. The date of 30 May was chosen as it was believed that “flowers would be in bloom all over the country.”
Memorial Day originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. With World War I it was decided that Decoration Day holiday should evolve to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars. This would later include World War II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The World Wars turned it into a day of remembrance. Congress standardized the holiday as Memorial Day and changed its observance to the last Monday in May.
The date of Decoration Day was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular Civil War battle. On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there. Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and continued the tradition in the years that followed. By 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor the precise separate days until after World War I.
For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date General Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May to create a three-day weekend for federal employees. The change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.
Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries and memorials. Some people wear a red poppy in remembrance of those fallen in war—a tradition that began with a World War I poem. Memorial Day has also become a time for family and friends to take weekend trips or have parties and barbecues. We suspect the long weekend had something to do with that. It also became the official start of summer.
Let us remember that the total number of Americans killed in action is 1,354,664. They were of every race, color, creed, and denomination. We must also remember that immigrants represented many of those men and women.
We should also be mindful that today’s military are all volunteers and represents 1% of our entire population. Some 270,000 are either release to reserve duty, discharged or retired. Only 20% of them have jobs. To hire veterans, look up VETech on the BTA website to find their résumés. If you have questions, please contact Brent Hoskins, executive director of BTA at brent@bta.org.
Sources:
- Statista.com
- History.com
- Wikipedia
- Department of Defense
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