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by Joe Snyder
Memorial Day was once a solemn day, more or less, of mourning, a sacred day of remembrance to honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms. Businesses closed for the day and communities all over America held parades honoring the fallen, the parade routes often ending in a local cemetery, or park, where speeches were given and prayers offered up.
In those days people took the time that day to clean the graves of those who had fallen or who had become incapacitated in the service of their country.
"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people, the cost of a free and undivided republic." – General Logan – 1868.
We need to remember with sincere respect those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to keep in sacred memory those who have died in serving our country, including those who battle for us in Iraq as you read this. We need to never let them be forgotten.
However, as bad as I hate to put the words on paper, the meaning and spirit of Memorial Day had largely faded as far too many only see the day as a day of food and fun.
As one of my soldier friends once said: "If it is considered a holiday, why is it so? I consider it to be a national day of mourning. This is how we observe it in our home. Because of what this day represents, the rest of the days of the year are our holidays."
On Memorial Day we are not expected to bow our heads and mourn all day long. On the other hand, we must not forget what each of us owe our honored dead – more than we can ever repay. The folks in other lands often show more respect for those who died. People of other nations often show more of the true spirit of Memorial Day than we do.
For example, a Memorial Day guest book entry from a Netherlands citizen states, "In 1999 I laid flowers at the grave of a U.S. fighter pilot who was a KIA (killed in action) in my village in 1945. In the Netherlands I know of schools adopting graves of Allied servicemen, keeping those graves in excellent condition." Does anyone know of grave adoptions by U.S. schools?
How many graves of the fallen do we in America leave dishonored by leaving their resting places forgotten and neglected?
With America conducting still another war, produced by a president who has never heard a shot fired in anger, it is time more people become aware of what "Memorial Day" symbolizes and stands for.
Take just a minute Monday to think of the sacrifices made by fine young Americans in defense of the good ‘ole United States of America!