This is "remembering" day, a day to honor the memory of those who have given their lives for their country. At solemn public services, at burial grounds, at places of worship, and in the seclusion of one's heart, the war dead are remembered--as individual loved ones and as the nation's heroes. Flowers and flags are placed on their graves as symbols of human affection and patriotic duty; moving speeches recall their heroic deeds; and fervent prayers are offered for peace among making.
Each community honors its own sons and daughters, but not forgetting others who have died fighting for freedom. In cadenced step, flanked by massed colors and flying banners, military units, civic and fraternal organizations march to martial music. A they near the cemetery, muffled drums replace the strident music and there is contemplative silence, relieved only by the plaintive sound of "taps" and the drone of Air Force planes as they circle overhead in disciplined formation. A military guard snaps to attention and the formalities begin. Spectators and speakers alike join in sober and earnest eulogy and the urgent search for peace. In tribute to fighting men lost at sea, the Navy sets afloat small boats laden with flowers; and at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery (see Veterans' Day) national recognition is given of the country's debt to the war dead. There, before an august gathering, the President of the United States, or his representative, lays a wreath at the foot of the Tomb to the memory of all who have died in battle. There, too, prayers for peace combine with praise for valor.
The day has also become one for personal remembrance: for visiting and decorating the graves of family and friends, and for honoring their memories. As visitors throng the cemeteries the white stones grow bright with bouquets of spring flowers. Formerly families would go as a group to tend the graves of relatives--to cut the weeds, plant new shrubs, or shore up a crumbling marker. Now most cemeteries have professional caretakers who keep the grounds in park-like order, and visitors provide only fresh flowers. At chapels in large cemeteries, services continue through the day and organ music is piped to all parts of the grounds.
Memorial Day, known first as Decoration Day, came into being a hundred years ago, at the close of the Civil War. Bitter differences had split the nation, and loyalties were not quickly abandoned; but both sides acknowledged the patriotic sacrifices made by all of the fighting men. The broadening view is reflected in lines from a postwar poem entitled "Gettysburg" by James Jeffrey Roche:
"For every wreath the victor
wears
The vanquished half may claim;
And every monument declares
A common pride and fame."
Credit for the first observance of Decoration Day is claimed for several places, some in the North and some in the South. A sign at Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, not far from Gettysburg, reads: BIRTHPLACE OF MEMORIAL DAY. There it is claimed, in 1864, even before the war had ended, two ladies met while laying flowers on soldiers' graves and agreed to again decorate the graves the following year. Another story credits the honor to Columbus, Mississippi, where kindly Southern ladies impartially decorated the grave of Union (Northern) soldiers along with those of the Confederates (Southern). We know only that the custom was made official in 1868 when General John A. Logan, National Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, and organization of Union veterans, issued an order which began:
"The Thirtieth Day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decoration the graves of the comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion and whose bodies lie in almost every city, village, or hamlet churchyard in the land."
and closed with words:
"Let no ravages of time testify to coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided Republic."
For many years local chapters of the G.A.R. led the Decoration Day ceremonies. Aside from a greater emphasis on bombastic oratory, the programs were much like present-day ceremonies. Civil War veterans and public officials marched to the cemetery and there heard these words from President Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address:
"...we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom...."
Gradually regional differences were erased, and the services originally dedicated only to Northern soldiers were extended to all those who died fighting regardless of the side they were on. The name of the holiday was also changed to Memorial Day, as better expressing its real meaning. In 1873 New York made May 30 a legal holiday and soon all other states had adopted a Memorial Day, although some Southern states observe different dates.
As the colorful "old soldiers" of the Grand Army of the Republic disappeared from the scene, the sons of Veterans of America took charge of the services, and since 1919 they in turn have been replaced by the American Legion and other organizations of World War veterans.
The battlefield at Gettysburg, now a national monument, is each year the scene of a patriotic commemorative. In his Memorial Day speech in 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt summarized the reason:
"On these hills of Gettysburg two brave armies of Americans met in combat. Not far from here in a valley likewise consecrated to American valor, a ragged Continental army survived a bitter winter to keep alive the expiring hopes of a new nation, and near to the battlefield and that valley stands the invincible city where the Declaration of Independence was born and the Constitution of the United States was written by the fathers. Surely, all this is holy ground."
Thus, the day which originally commemorated those who died in the Civil War has become a day to remember the deeds and sacrifices of all war dead.
Throughout the world, wherever American soldiers are buried, Memorial Day is observed. In cemeteries in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Belgium, Italy, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam and in many South Pacific Islands, dignified services are held in memory of those who rest in honored glory.
General George C. Marshall, remembered not only as a great military leader but also for his postwar humanitarian efforts, lists the World War II memorials:
"We have established 14 of
these...memorials abroad--at Manila, near Bataan and Corregidor; in the green of
the English countryside; on hills above the pastoral
valleys of France and Belgium, in the fields of
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy, and North Africa."
And as the arc grows wider, thoughtful observers like B. Y.
Williams in his poem, "I Heard the Drums," ask
themselves:
"What is the truth mankind must learn Before all wars
shall cease?"