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Memorial Day - A Tribute To Those Who Gave The Ultimate Sacrafice

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I spent some time researching this day of reverence. To be quite honest I didn't know the difference between it and Veterans Day. Memorial Day is the day we honor those that paid the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our armed forces. Every year my boys donate a morning on the weekend before the holiday at the largest cemetery in our area to place flags at graves of those who are remembered. Returning volunteers are rotated through the cemetery to see different headstones - names - service branches - burial areas. Again being honest, I drove them there and picked them up when done, a situation I will change next year.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day which started shortly after the Civil War, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service of the United States of America.



 
Going home

In The Arms Of An Angel



Along with those who made the ultimate sacrifice we need to remember the families who suffered this loss..

Heaven Was Needing A Hero


Edit: Lastly, being a history buff, I found this article interesting.> Forgetting Why We Remember There are many claims to being the 1st event to many different holidays but this one seems to to have credence.
 
The largest of these events, forgotten until I had some extraordinary luck in an archive at Harvard, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the city’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club into an outdoor prison. Union captives were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand.
 
After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston black workmen went to the site, reburied the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
 
The symbolic power of this Low Country planter aristocracy’s bastion was not lost on the freedpeople, who then, in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.”


 
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I never thought I'd see this holiday properly observed by anyone. Good on you, man!
 
I've often seen it used as an excuse to get drunk (like anyone ever needed a reason) or as motivation to drive and visit someone you don't usually see, but most people just appreciate it as a day they get off work.
 
My experience is it's one of those holidays where I have no idea about it until I try to go to the bank or the post office. lol
 
At least you took the time to research it. I've seen people on facebook post tributes to veterans on labor day thinking thats what the holiday was for.
 
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