Memorial Day - the morphing of remembering

Memorial Day has morphed from a day when all businesses closed for the first officially observed holiday in 1868 to the present celebration which is a mixture of modern life and remembrance of the meaning of the day.

In order to understand today’s celebrations and commercial exploitation of the Day you have to go back to the earliest celebrations of the day.  The date is continually debated among historians.  There is a lot of historical positioning for the honor of who held the first Decoration Day later known as Memorial Day remembrance. 

Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department makes an impressive case that the first Memorial Day observance was held in Charleston, SC in 1865 by freed slaves.  

There is even some verification of the first unofficial Decoration Day in a passage of a diary supposedly written in 1865.

 “On May-day I told all the colored children of the free schools of Charleston to go out to the Race Course with bouquets of roses and other sweet-smelling flowers, and throw them on the graves of our martyrs. Nearly three thousand children went out, and perhaps double that number of grown-up people. The children marched from the Race Course singing the John Brown song, and then, silently and reverently, and with heads uncovered, they entered the burial ground and covered the graves with flowers. Afterwards they went to the fields near by and sang the “Star Spangled Banner,” “America,” and “Rally Round the Flag.””

In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson tried to end the debate over where the 1st Memorial Day was celebrated when he declared the 1st ‘Official’ Memorial Day was in Waterloo, NY.

 Officially Memorial Day was proclaimed on May 5, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

There is evidence that the General was inspired by his wife, Mrs. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan, to create Decoration Day after she visited Petersburg, VA in March of 1868 and viewed their recognition of those who had died during the civil war

Logan declared that Decoration Day be honored, “as a day for strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, or hamlet church yard in the land...It is the purpose of  the commander-in-chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will  be kept from year to year while a survivor of the war remains to honor the  memory of the departed.”

Honoring those who have died in battle goes back to Roman times, but the modern day remembrance was born from the deaths during the Civil War.  There seems to be no debate about this.  All of the earlier ceremonies came immediately after the Civil War.   There are ample historical references to support almost any city that feels the day was started in their city.

As years went by the celebrations for the Day grew and the original tradition of closing businesses and devoting the day to honoring those who gave their lives for the freedoms we continue to enjoy was a significant part of the honor.

Parades were held in small towns all over the country.  The war was still fresh in the minds of many young mothers and fathers.  This was a day that had a special significance. By the time World War II ended, Memorial Day was slowly turning into the recognition of the first day of the summer season. 

The Korean War reminded everyone how costly war can be.  It also reminded people that freedom was not free.  There was always someone who wanted to test the willingness of those who preserve our freedom.

During these years there were very few families who didn’t suffer a loss from the war and the remembrances of life during the war was still fresh on most people’s minds.  School marching bands all over the country were the anchor of many parades.  Veterans proudly marched to show their appreciation for those who paid the ultimate price.

Less than two decades after Korea, the United States was in another war.  By this time Memorial Day had slowly become a day serving two distinct purposes.  One was to honor those who gave their lives; the other was to celebrate life itself and the beginning of a fun filled summer season. 

Parades were still part of the tradition, but they were slowly transforming from a solemn way to recognize those who were lost during war, to a more festive way to bring in the summer.  During this transition period more and more businesses stayed open. 

The more the tide turned against the Vietnam War the more that Memorial Day became less and less a way of honoring those who did not come back.  More and more small towns were discontinuing their annual parades; protestors seemed to create an atmosphere that caused people to hesitate about conducting formal ceremonies. 

By the time the war ended even the single day used to honor the dead was transformed into a weekend to get our minds into the gaiety of the summer season.  Few businesses closed, fewer and fewer parades were held.  The various service organizations kept the meaning of the day alive, but all of a sudden parents had to remind their kids what the day was all about. 

When the Vietnam peace agreement was signed on Jan. 27, 1973 Americans had a very bitter taste for war.  More importantly, for the future of the fighting man in America, the military service draft also ended. In 1973 and our country would convert to an all volunteer military.  When the draft ended, the way people dealt with war on a personal basis changed considerably.  They no longer had to worry about whether or not their sons (women were not drafted) would be taken from them to go off to some far away land to fight and maybe die for what many considered someone else’s freedom.

Another important factor that came out of the Vietnam War was – how to hide the vulgarities of war from the public view.  There was nothing more disturbing during Vietnam than to have parents, family and friends see their young men butchered and killed on television.  Many historians feel that this alone drove the peace movement into the spotlight.  As far as the government and military were concerned this would never happen again.

The problem is that when you don’t show the carnage of war, people forget the price that has to be paid.  It is no different than hearing about someone being hurt or killed in an auto accident.  When you hear the words, you say an instant prayer or feel sad, but then life goes on instantly. 

A different process comes into play when you see the pictures of the accident on television. All of a sudden you see the cars mangled and wonder how anyone even made it out of the accident.  That image is seared into your mind and can be recalled easily in the future.  Most of us have a picture of a car wreck in our minds that we happened to pass by, not many of us have a similar picture of war.

As the years continued to pass and more and more people forgot the images of Vietnam, the ultimate cost of war, lives lost, was also forgotten.  It became something that continued to loose its meaning. 

Four thousand and eighty Americans have lost their lives in Operation Iraqi freedom.  Sadly, this and most of the tragedies of this war have been unseen and lately almost unheard.  This has been what I call the hidden war.  They talk about the billions of dollars it takes to fight the war, but a billion dollars is a figure that most Americans cannot comprehend. 

They talk about the lives lost, but few Americans have seen any flag draped coffins coming home.  The daily images of war being fought are limited.  In fact some of the images of this war are run over and over again so that you can become desensitized to it.  In your mind you say, I’ve seen that before and then you forget it. 

What we are left with is how to convince Americans, especially the younger ones, to pay their respects to the many people who have paid the ultimate price.  From the Revolutionary War until now countless numbers of fighting men and women have paid with their lives so that today we can enjoy the freedom needed to celebrate and have fun on Memorial Day.

 A recent poll showed that only 28% of Americans know what Memorial Day is for.  That means roughly three out of four people do not know why we have the holiday. 

We must find a way to remind people about the real cost of war. Recently they have been trying to convince people to take a minute at 3 p.m. eastern time on Memorial Day to honor the dead.  It is called ‘National Moment of Remembrance’.

“National Moment of Remembrance was established by Congress, asks Americans wherever they are at 3 p.m., local time, on Memorial Day to pause in an act of national unity (duration: one minute).  The time 3 p.m. was chosen because it is the time when most Americans are enjoying their freedoms on the national holiday. The Moment does not replace traditional Memorial Day events; rather it is an act of national unity in which all Americans, alone or with family and friends, honor those who died for our freedom.” 

The movement is slow in getting started, but if we continue to take one minute to honor the many who are no longer here to be able to enjoy the moment, it will bring some meaning back to the people who celebrate the day.  Maybe, in a modern way, we can fulfill  General Logan’s dream that, “this observance with the hope that it will  be kept from year to year while a survivor of the war remains to honor the  memory of the departed.”