Memorial Day

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As Memorial Day approaches I continue to reflect and remember those who sacrificed everything
for us so that we can live and enjoy the freedoms we have. Memories of those I (we) knew who fell haunt me (us), and so we thank them for their sacrifice, and we will never forget them, we pray for them always, and we live in the way that honors them.

RIP Brothers and Sisters

 
I always feel a little odd when people thank me for my service but try to remember they don't know what else to do. Most of the country hasn't been affected by the current war and probably don't even know the difference in Memorial Day and Veterans Day. The living who served do not rate a thank you this weekend but should lead the effort in honoring those who sacrificed all. My wife and I visit Quantico National Cemetery every year and pay respects and cry from afar with the grieving widows with young kids and platoon mates sharing a beer at the grave of their fallen buddy. I walk with a permanent limp with scars but I still walk and the least I can do is honor those I couldn't bring home.
 
I have a friend at Arlington, and I miss him.
I read this letter to Mrs. Bixby every year when I raise my flag, and somehow it helps;


Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln
 
My oldest daughter was about eight when we visited the Wall. She sat on my shoulders as she rubbed the names of two of my friends on that wall. People walking by stopped and watched. They do remember and honor. She is now USNA graduate and Marine Captain.
 
Memorial Day is a national holiday set aside to honor the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. It became a federal holiday in 1971 and is observed on the last Monday of May. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades.


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. 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.


On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.


The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.


Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor their dead on separate days until after World War I. in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day. Waterloo—which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.


Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars.


For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date 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 in order 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.

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/memorial-day-history

:usa:

We’ve all heard, “Freedom isn’t free.” Since 1776, it’s actually cost us more than 1.3 million lives.

This weekend, I encourage you to pause and remember the men and women who paid the ultimate price of our freedom - and then go on about enjoying those freedoms.
 
I live just off I-95 two miles from Quantico. The rolling thunder bikes are rolling in.
 
IMG_0161.JPG IMG_0160.JPG
My son and his battalion hiking to the top of 1stSgt's Hill at Camp Pendleton to pay respects to Marines lost in combat. This was only one of the crosses with dog tags.
 
I’m currently training (yes during the 4-day) in Ann Arbor, MI. I went to Subway for lunch and ordered a footlong. The guy next to me in line offered to buy my lunch, but the cashier told the man, “don’t worry about it, because it’s on the house.”

I’m not gonna lie, that felt pretty cool. It’s one thing for the public to say “thank you for your service.” It’s another for the public to SHOW “thank you for your service.”

I think I get a better appreciation of how grateful a nation truly is when I’m miles away from a military installation.
 
“For The Fallen”
- Laurence S. Binyon, September 2014

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.
 
"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived" George Patton. Admittedly he did have a different view on war. I always liked Flanders Fields as one of my favorite poems. Buy my poppies every year.
 
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