My patriotism and love of country was learned by observing my elders carrying out their responsibilities as citizens, watching them exercise their rights, listening to their conversations and asking questions. My Dad was a big part of my civics education.
He was proud of his service in the US Army and told me of his various postings and experiences in Korea. Dad was mustered out in 1957. He had me help him raise and lower Old Glory every day and once lowered, we folded the flag properly too.
My father brought me along to vote with him. As a child, he let me into the voting booth with him and explained the process, the candidates and why he was voting the way he did.
My Dad’s older brother, Thorwald, was an artilleryman at the Pusan Perimeter in the darkest early days of the Korean War. As a teenager interested in history, I asked him once if he ever considering surrendering in the face of what seemed like overwhelming odds. Thorwald appeared to be personally insulted, although he never actually said anything. He looked at me with a combination of disgust and pity. He simply shook his head, and that was the end of that.
They’re gone now, my Dad and Thorwald, as is my great uncle Chester, who was a doughboy in World War One and who was gassed and taken prisoner by the Germans. I have other relatives who have served. I tried to volunteer but my extremely poor eyesight and heart arrhythmia kept me out of the Service.
Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, a day to go to the cemetery and decorate the graves of Civil War veterans with flowers. Originally, the former Confederate states considered it a “Yankee holiday” and refused to honor their war dead on the same day as their former enemies. Many southern states observed Memorial Day on June 3, Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s birthday, instead of the northern tradition of the end of May. The first national Memorial Day was declared in 1868.
Veterans, North and South, of the Battle at Gettysburg had a reunion in 1913 on the 50th anniversary of that terrible meeting during the Civil War. After that get together, sectional animosity seemed to dissipate and there was national agreement that Memorial Day should be celebrated uniformly on May 30th. It was celebrated on May 30th until federal legislation changed the date to the last Monday in May beginning in 1971, in order to give folks a three day weekend. The rationale was it would make it easier to travel to cemeteries to pay homage to fallen veterans. Veterans’ groups thought the real reason was to give federal employees a long weekend.
Originally, Memorial Day was meant only to honor soldiers who had actually fallen in battle. Over time, the holiday came to mean remembrance and commemoration of all veterans who had passed to honor their service rather than just those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the nation.
Hopefully you’ll visit a cemetery and pay tribute to someone who served or simply just to stroll through the cemetery, taking in the green space, the quiet majesty of the tombstones and the solemnity of the place. I used to give Memorial Day addresses on a regular basis when I was active in politics and an office holder. I always went to the town where I was going to give the speech a couple of times, weeks before the event to walk the cemetery. It is amazing the legacy of service in small town South Dakota. Many cemeteries in South Dakota have individuals whose service goes back to the Civil War and every war since. I would sprinkle the names of those town veterans into my speech as I made the point that America survives because of those who give up their own lives for the rest of us and because America thrives only when the living makes real the rights, liberties, privileges and responsibilities of citizenship that our fallen veterans have died to safeguard.
If you walk through a cemetery this Memorial Day and see a penny on a headstone that means someone has paid tribute to that deceased veteran for their service. A nickel signifies that the visitor to the gravesite had gone through boot camp with the dearly departed. If a dime is left as a memorial that means a fellow member of that person’s unit has stopped by for a visit. A quarter left at a gravesite is the most poignant of all; it means the person who paused for a moment of remembrance was with the person lying in eternal rest when they died in the service of their country.
Memorial Day is more than a Monday off during a three day weekend. It is more than an occasion for a white sale. It is more than the starting gun for the tourist season. It is a time of reflection. A time of gratitude. A time to remember and think what life might be like if brave Americans hadn’t heard and heeded the call and been willing, in Lincoln’s words uttered at Gettysburg, to give “…their last full measure of devotion…” for this great land.
God Bless America. God bless the fallen. God bless those who have served and who are now serving. A great nation owes you a debt that it can never fully repay. We remember and honor you, especially on this Memorial Day.