A Moment to Reflect
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011Welcome to all my regular readers. For those of you who follow our blog, you will notice that this post will differ from our usual fare. We normally use this page to give our readers useful information about your vehicles. Buying, selling maintaining and all other things auto. Our regular blog will return on my next post but for today and this weekend I would like to take a few minutes of your time to remind ourselves what Memorial Day is and ask what it means to you.Most people across this great nation look forward to the Memorial Day weekend. It is the “unofficial start of summer”, a time for BBQ’s, family reunions and beach vacations. All of that is fine. We work hard as a nation and deserve to take a national break, but I fear, that with all of this, the true meaning of Memorial Day has been lost. So please indulge me as I give us some history on this national day of honor for those who have fought and died to keep our nation free.
It began, unofficialy, when southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the end of the Civil War.
After the war, a women’s memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi, put flowers on the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers in 1866, an act of generosity that inspired the poem by Francis Miles Finch, “The Blue and the Grey,” published in the Atlantic Monthly. In following that tradition, the first official Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was known at the time, was celebrated by a declaration in 1868; Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the grand Army of the Republic issued what was called General Order Number 11, designating May 30 as a Memorial day. He declared it to be “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”
We marked this first Memorial Day in Arlington with a speech by then President; James Buchannan and with 5000 volunteers marking each grave with an American flag. The tradition, which began that first year is still in practice now , as our President marks the day with the same ceremony; laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington and with volunteers still marking each and every grave with an American flag.
By the late 1800s, many communities across the country had begun to celebrate Memorial Day and, after World War I, observances also began to honor those who had died in all of America’s wars. In 1966, the federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon Johnson, declared Waterloo, N.Y., the official birthplace of Memorial Day. They chose Waterloo—which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—because the town had made Memorial Day an annual, community-wide event during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.With all of this history, and the unofficial celebrations that took place each year, in 1971 Congress finally declared the last Monday of each May to be what we know now as Memorial day, a National holiday.
Many brave Americans have fought and died over the past 2 centuries to assure our continuing freedoms and for the freedoms of people all over the world. America has always been proud to hear the calls of those crying for the right to be free from oppression and tyranny. We have stood at the forefront of those fights in the farthest reaches of the world. When a cry for democracy is heard, our brave citizens in uniform, hear that call and are there to protect and defend our values and those who yearn to share them.
America is and always has been a model for the freedom of the human spirit and that spirit lives in every American fighting man and woman. They represent the best of what we have to offer the world and they do so freely, well aware of the potential cost.
Memorial Day honors all that is good and right about America and so much more. So as you are celebrating this weekend, take a moment to remember what it is we are celebrating. For all that divides us in this difficult time, Memorial Day is an opportunity to remember what unites us as a nation, the pride in our history and our standing in the world as the defenders of freedom.
We here at We Buy Any Auto want to take this moment to thank those who, with selfless devotion to our ideals and to the dignity of the human spirit, made the ultimate sacrifice