Happy Memorial Day

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day.

This writing captures the true meaning of the holiday.

Memorial Day is their day, isn't it? It is supposed
to be the day a grateful nation pauses to quietly
thank the more than one million men and women who have
died in military service to their country since the
Revolutionary War.

Or is it the day the beach resorts kick into high gear
for the summer season, the day the strand is covered
by fish-belly white people basting themselves in
coconut oil, the day the off-season rates end and the
weekend you can't get in a seaside seafood restaurant
with anything less than a one hour wait.

Or is it one of the biggest shopping center sales days
of the year, a day when hunting for a parking space is
the prime sport for the holiday stay-at-homers?

Or is it the weekend when more people will kill
themselves on the highways than any other weekend and
Highway Patrol troopers work overtime picking up the
pieces?

I think the men and women who died for us would
understand what we do with their day. I hope they
would, because if they wouldn't, if they would have
insisted that it be a somber, respectful day of
remembrance, then we have blown it and dishonored
their sacrifice.

I knew some of those who died, and the guys I knew
would have understood.

They liked a sunny beach and a cold beer and a hot
babe in a black bikini, too. They would have enjoyed
packing the kids, the inflatable rafts, the coolers,
and the suntan lotion in the car and heading for the
lake. They would have enjoyed staying at home and
cutting the grass and getting together with some
friends and cooking some steaks on the grill, too.

But they didn't get the chance. They blew up in the
Marine Barracks in Beirut and died in the oily waters
of the Persian Gulf. They caught theirs at the
airstrip in Grenada in the little war everyone laughed
at. They bought the farm in the I Drang Valley and on
Heartbreak Ridge, Phu Tai and at Hue. They froze at
the Chosin Reservoir and were shot at the Pusan
Perimeter. They drowned in the surf at Omaha Beach or
fell in the fetid jungles of Guadalcanal.
They were at the Soame and at San Juan Hill and at
Gettysburg and at Cerro Gordo and at Valley Forge.

They couldn't be here with us this weekend, but I
think they would understand that we don't spend the
day in tears and heart-wrenching memorials. They
wouldn't want that. Grief is not why they died.
They died so we could go fishing. They died so
another father could hold his laughing little girl
over the waves. They died so another father could
toss a baseball to his son in their backyard while the
charcoal is getting white. They died so another buddy
could drink a beer on his day off. They died so a
family could get in the station wagon and go shopping
and maybe get some ice cream on the way home.

They won't mind that we have chosen their day to have
our first big outdoor party of the year. But they
wouldn't mind, either, if we took just a second and
thought about them.

Some will think of them formally, of course. Wreaths
will be laid in small, sparsely attended ceremonies in
military cemeteries and at monuments at state capitols
and in small town's squares. Flags will fly over the
graves, patriotic words will be spoken and a few
people there will probably feel a little anger that no
more people showed up. They'll think no one else
remembers.

But we do remember. We remember Smitty and Chico and
Davey and the guys who died. We remember the deal we
made: If we buy it, we said, drink a beer for me.

I'll do it for you, guys. I'll drink that beer for
you today, and I'll sit on that beach for you, and
I'll check out the girls for you and, just briefly,
I'll think of you. I won't let your memory spoil the
trip but you'll be on that sunny beach with me today.

I will not mourn your deaths this Memorial Day, my
friends. Rather, I'll celebrate the life you gave me.

This Bud's for you, brother!

-Author Unknown-

 

The annual commemoration of Memorial Day was born in the former Confederate States in 1866, where thew graves of Confederate soldiers were decorated and honored. The holiday was adopted by the United States in 1868, through the efforts of Gen. John A. Logan, who headed the Grand Army of the Republic- the largest Union veterans’ fraternity at that time.

On May 30, 1868, he wrote in an order stating that the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country should be decorated with flowers. The holiday was originally called Decoration Day. In later years, it evolved to honor not only Civil War soldiers but all troops who had fallen serving the country, and was renamed Memorial Day.