Memorial Day

Monday, May 28th, is Memorial Day, a day that the people of our nation have set aside to remember our fallen warriors. Well over a million American service members have died in the wars and conflicts this nation has fought since the first colonial soldiers took up arms in 1775 to fight for our independence. They’ve died on American soil and on foreign soil, they’ve died at sea, and they’ve died in the air. Every one of them gave his life for this country, for our people, and our way of life. They gave their lives so that generations yet unborn could live in a free nation. Each was a loved one cherished by family and friends. Each and every death was a loss to their family, to the community, and to the nation.

The observance of this day was born of compassion in 1863. As the Civil War raged on, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and other loved ones were cleaning Confederate soldiers' graves in Columbus, Mississippi, placing flowers on them. They noticed nearby Union soldiers' graves, overgrown with weeds. Grieving for their own fallen soldiers, the Confederate women understood that the dead Union soldiers buried nearby were the loved ones of families and communities far away. Laying aside the deep hatreds of the bloodiest and most fearsome war this nation ever fought, they cleared the tangled brush and weeds from those Union graves as well as their own soldiers' graves, and laid flowers on them all.

Soon the tradition of a "Decoration Day" for the graves of fallen soldiers spread. On May 5,1866, when the Civil War was over, Mr. Henry Welles of Waterloo, New York, closed his drugstore and suggested that all other shops in town also close up for a day to honor all soldiers killed in the Civil War, union and confederate alike. It was a gesture of healing and reconciliation in a land ripped apart by conflict.

For decades, Memorial Day has been a holiday when stores closed and communities gathered together for parades and other celebrations with a patriotic theme. Memorial Day meant ceremonies at cemeteries, speeches honoring those who gave their lives in the service of our nation, the laying of wreaths and the playing of Taps for our dead. A day for remembering the ideals and values those soldiers stood for, and died defending. Sadly, many Americans have lost this connection with our nation’s history. All too many Americans today view military service as little more than images seen on television and in movies. It seems fashionable to accuse the soldier of being a warmonger, forgetting for a moment that the soldier hates and fears war more than anyone, for it is he who must ultimately pay the butchers bill. But inevitably he goes where our government sends him, suffers privation, hardship, and mortal danger, to do battle with those who would destroy our country.

For a growing number of the American people, Memorial Day has come to mean simply a three-day weekend, a camping trip, barbecue, or a major shopping day. Families might still gather for picnics, and old soldiers still salute the final resting place of a friend or relative, but for many Americans, the spirit of remembrance…is absent. Americans owe a great debt to those who sacrificed their lives so that we could live in a free nation. We can only begin to repay that debt, by not forgetting them, by remembering what they did, and honoring what they stood for. It has been American soldiers, with their courage, strength, and their blood, that have given us our nation, and have since kept it safe. In the words of Charles M. Province:

"It is the Soldier, not the reporter,

who has given us Freedom of the Press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet,

who has given us Freedom of Speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer,

who has given us the Freedom to demonstrate.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer,

who has given us the right to a fair trial;

and it is the Soldier--

who salutes the flag,

who serves the flag,

and whose coffin is draped by the flag--

Who allows the protester to burn the flag."

Several years ago, at our Memorial Day ceremony here in Grangeville, the keynote speaker pronounced one particularly meaningful sentence that has burned itself into my mind. As he handed a young lady in the audience a small American flag, he said: “Always remember, that it was an old soldier who gave you that flag.”

On Memorial Day, please join me in remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this nation and our people. And perhaps you’ll also join me in a silent prayer for the well-being of those young Americans who once again go in harms way on foreign battlefields.

And thank God that we still have the few who are willing to risk all... defending our country.