Dateline Memorial Day, 2010. (As often happens, I’m running a bit late in getting this weeks column ready for press.)
I’ll start with reminding everyone that “Decoration Day” was begun by a group of Confederate women in Mississippi who, in the midst of our Civil War, while caring for the graves of their husbands and sons that had been killed in combat, noticed that the nearby graves of Union soldiers had been completely ignored and were being overgrown by brambles and weeds. Realizing that those Union soldiers had also left wives and sweethearts behind, the Confederate Ladies began caring for the Union graves as well. That kindness quickly spread to the North, and soldier’s graves across the nation were cared for, often by complete strangers, who understood what those soldiers had fought and died for. Following the war, Lt. Gen. John Logan, then commander of the Union veteran’s organization “The Grand Army of the Republic” issued the document that semi-officially made Memorial Day a national holiday. It reads in part;
The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated 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 church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
General Logan’s order was posted to veterans of the Civil War, and was soon adopted by nearly all Americans across the land. Observed on the last Monday of May (May 31 in 2010), it was intended to commemorate U.S. soldiers who died while in military service, and was enlarged following WW I to honor American soldiers from all wars. A day of remembrance of those who answered the call, served their country in a most honorable manner, and who all too often didn’t get to come home again.
Mr. Obama’s relationship with the military is on somewhat shaky ground, so his decision to take a vacation with his family in Chicago rather than pay his Memorial Day respects at Arlington National Cemetery is somewhat hard to understand. Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Orson Swindle said of that decision; “The President seems to demonstrate almost weekly just how, at least to me, little he cares about this country and our history and our heritage,” “He seems almost to resent it, which is the most mind-boggling thing in the world, because without a country like America Barack Obama could not be President. He seems to dislike our institutions… and that’s a sad, sad thing.” Swindle is a decorated Vietnam veteran, and was Sen. John McCain’s cellmate in the Hanoi Hilton.
I’m not going to disparage Mr. Obama’s decision, even though it does seem rather strange to me. Rather than Arlington, he visited the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery south of Chicago (conveniently close to his vacation site), where the memorial ceremony was quickly cancelled due to rain showers. Still, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and advisor to Presidents Ford and Carter, Mr. Steven Hess said that “Presidents go to Arlington for three reasons, one is tradition, obviously when there’s a tradition, one prefers to follow it rather than break it.” Then, “The second would be just the size and importance of it, the number of veterans from all wars that are there and that’s significant. And the third is a rather practical one, it is very convenient. Presidents go across the bridge and there they are. Their time is valuable, I don’t mean that that’s much in their minds but it’s probably somewhat in the minds of their schedulers. I don’t know of previous Presidents doing what Obama’s done.” It happens that nearly every region in the country has a veterans cemetery, so Mr. Obama didn’t break with tradition all that severely I suppose. Still, David Corn, former editor of the ultra-liberal magazine “The Nation”, wrote that “So what the hell do these conservatives want out of Obama? And does it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb?” Well Mr. Corn, perhaps Memorial Day matters to the families of the soldiers whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and even more so to the families of servicemen who were killed in action and whose remains have yet to be identified and returned. Or ask the living Mr. Corn, ask the old vet standing at attention and holding a salute while Taps is being played. Or perhaps you might ask the young soldier proudly standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Those “leaves” you speak of, Mr. Corn, are placed there in respect for their sacrifice. Why Arlington you might ask? Well, consider… Of all the stones standing silent watch in these dangerous times, one modest white-marble slab on a green hillside stands out. On it is engraved:
I’ll start with reminding everyone that “Decoration Day” was begun by a group of Confederate women in Mississippi who, in the midst of our Civil War, while caring for the graves of their husbands and sons that had been killed in combat, noticed that the nearby graves of Union soldiers had been completely ignored and were being overgrown by brambles and weeds. Realizing that those Union soldiers had also left wives and sweethearts behind, the Confederate Ladies began caring for the Union graves as well. That kindness quickly spread to the North, and soldier’s graves across the nation were cared for, often by complete strangers, who understood what those soldiers had fought and died for. Following the war, Lt. Gen. John Logan, then commander of the Union veteran’s organization “The Grand Army of the Republic” issued the document that semi-officially made Memorial Day a national holiday. It reads in part;
The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated 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 church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
General Logan’s order was posted to veterans of the Civil War, and was soon adopted by nearly all Americans across the land. Observed on the last Monday of May (May 31 in 2010), it was intended to commemorate U.S. soldiers who died while in military service, and was enlarged following WW I to honor American soldiers from all wars. A day of remembrance of those who answered the call, served their country in a most honorable manner, and who all too often didn’t get to come home again.
Mr. Obama’s relationship with the military is on somewhat shaky ground, so his decision to take a vacation with his family in Chicago rather than pay his Memorial Day respects at Arlington National Cemetery is somewhat hard to understand. Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Orson Swindle said of that decision; “The President seems to demonstrate almost weekly just how, at least to me, little he cares about this country and our history and our heritage,” “He seems almost to resent it, which is the most mind-boggling thing in the world, because without a country like America Barack Obama could not be President. He seems to dislike our institutions… and that’s a sad, sad thing.” Swindle is a decorated Vietnam veteran, and was Sen. John McCain’s cellmate in the Hanoi Hilton.
I’m not going to disparage Mr. Obama’s decision, even though it does seem rather strange to me. Rather than Arlington, he visited the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery south of Chicago (conveniently close to his vacation site), where the memorial ceremony was quickly cancelled due to rain showers. Still, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and advisor to Presidents Ford and Carter, Mr. Steven Hess said that “Presidents go to Arlington for three reasons, one is tradition, obviously when there’s a tradition, one prefers to follow it rather than break it.” Then, “The second would be just the size and importance of it, the number of veterans from all wars that are there and that’s significant. And the third is a rather practical one, it is very convenient. Presidents go across the bridge and there they are. Their time is valuable, I don’t mean that that’s much in their minds but it’s probably somewhat in the minds of their schedulers. I don’t know of previous Presidents doing what Obama’s done.” It happens that nearly every region in the country has a veterans cemetery, so Mr. Obama didn’t break with tradition all that severely I suppose. Still, David Corn, former editor of the ultra-liberal magazine “The Nation”, wrote that “So what the hell do these conservatives want out of Obama? And does it matter if Obama throws some leaves on a tomb?” Well Mr. Corn, perhaps Memorial Day matters to the families of the soldiers whose names appear on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and even more so to the families of servicemen who were killed in action and whose remains have yet to be identified and returned. Or ask the living Mr. Corn, ask the old vet standing at attention and holding a salute while Taps is being played. Or perhaps you might ask the young soldier proudly standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Those “leaves” you speak of, Mr. Corn, are placed there in respect for their sacrifice. Why Arlington you might ask? Well, consider… Of all the stones standing silent watch in these dangerous times, one modest white-marble slab on a green hillside stands out. On it is engraved:
Michael Joseph Mansfield
PVT U.S. Marine Corps
Mar 16 1903
Oct 5 2001
Private Mansfield did not fall in battle like so many soldiers whose last post is at our National Cemetery. Mike was fortunate to have lived to know his grandchildren, and he died at age 98, at Walter Reed Medical Center. In these days of greed and stolen honor, he ordered that his headstone disclose nothing more than that he shared a singular honor with millions of other Americans, that of holding the lowest rank in the US Marine Corps. Not that he had been America's ambassador to Japan, or that he was a United States senator from Montana. There’s no mention that he was our longest serving majority leader of the Senate, through unpopular wars, terrorism, battles for equal rights, filibusters and financial furies, mushroom cloud nightmares, clashes of church and state, guns and taxes, and even Watergate.
What's tragic is that at the end of his life Mike saw the America he'd fought for in a civil and respectful fashion, turn into sound-bite nastiness, TV slogans, Internet smears, blind faith ideology, and tempered by "gimme" power grabs. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan led the memorial service for the troops stationed there. "The fact that people are willing to stand up and do what's difficult, they're willing to stand up and do what's frightening, and they're willing to stand up and do what often costs, really is the measure of not just a person, but of a people." Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, urged that we all "take time today to think about those who made their freedom possible."
As for me, following Monday’s Memorial Day ceremony here in Grangeville, I went with another “old veteran” to hoist a glass, “To times long past, places far away, and friends who won’t be with us today”. And we both shed a tear for those long ago friends who gave their young lives to the nation that we all held so dear.
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