Memorial Day is about more than a long weekend or special sales. It is a solemn holiday and a national day of mourning to honor those who died while in active military service. It is important we as a nation remember this.
Due to the nature of this day, we remind readers not to wish people a “Happy Memorial Day” or thank active-duty service members. Instead, we strongly encourage everyone who is able to attend their local Memorial Day events or reach out to their American Legion post to volunteer in some way, whether that is bringing coffee for Legion members who are organizing a ceremony, helping to place flags on veteran graves, or anything in between. These small acts will likely mean the world to them.
The first national observance of Memorial Day took place in Arlington National Cemetery in 1868. Originally called Decoration Day, it was established in order to place flowers on the graves of veterans and remember the human cost of the Civil War, which had ended three years earlier.
Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veteran soldiers, wrote the general orders for that first observation encouraging future generations to continue the practice of honoring the war dead each year.
Reading his words 158 years later, we find they still ring true.
“We should guard their grave with sacred vigilance,” he wrote, “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.”
With U.S. military service members engaged overseas in the Middle East, we can only hope that our actions this Memorial Day will show we have indeed not forgotten.
