May 26, 2008

• MEMORIAL DAY

  Origin And Birthplace Of Memorial Day

  On May 5, 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic established Memorial Day or Decoration Day as the national day to decorate the graves of the Civil War soldiers with flowers. Major General John A. Logan appointed May 30 as the day to be observed. Arlington National Cemetery had the first observance of the day on a grand scale. The place was appropriate as it already housed graves of over 20,000 Union dead and several hundred Confederate dead. Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant presided the meeting and the center point of these Memorial Day ceremonies was the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion. Speeches were followed by a march of soldiers' children and orphans and members of the GAR through the cemetery strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves. They also recited prayers and sang hymns for the dead.
  
  Even before this declaration, local observances for these war dead were being held at various places. In Columbus, Miss., a group of women visited a cemetery on April 25 1866, to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers and the Union soldiers whop fell at the battle of Siloh. Many cities in the North and the South claim to be the first to celebrate Memorial Day in 1866 but Congress and President Lyndon Johnson officially declared Waterloo in New York as the 'birthplace' of Memorial Day in 1966. It was said that on May 5, 1866, a ceremony was held here to honor local soldiers and sailors who fought in the Civil War, businesses were closed for the day and residents furled flags at half-mast. It was said to be the first formal, community-wide and regular event.
  
  In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by the Congress, who designated the last Monday in May as the day for its observance. Many states observe separate Confederate Memorial Days. Mississippi observes it on the last Monday of April, Alabama on the fourth Monday of April, Georgia on April 26, North and South Carolina on May 10 and Louisiana and Tennessee on June 3. In Tennessee, the day is named as 'Confederate Decorations Day' while Texas observes 'Confederate Heroes Day' on January 19. In Virginia, Memorial Day is better known as 'May Confederate Memorial Day.'

   

  Kelly in her poem 'Freedom is not free' talks about the thousands of soldiers that have laid down their lives for the freedom, we take for granted.
  
  She talks about the grim truth that hovers over the lives of marines and soldiers of a nation and the emotions that stir up in her as she walks down the unmarked graves of the Arlington National cemetery.

  
  

  Freedom Is Not Free

  - Kelly Strong

   

  I watched the flag pass by one day.
  It fluttered in the breeze.
  A young Marine saluted it,
  and then he stood at ease.
  I looked at him in uniform
  So young, so tall, so proud,
  He'd stand out in any crowd.
  I thought how many men like him
  Had fallen through the years.
  How many died on foreign soil?
  How many mothers' tears?
  How many pilots' planes shot down?
  How many died at sea?
  How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
  No, freedom isn't free.
  
  I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
  When everything was still
  I listened to the bugler play
  And felt a sudden chill.
  I wondered just how many times
  That TAPS had meant "Amen,"
  When a flag had draped a coffin
  Of a brother or a friend.
  I thought of all the children,
  Of the mothers and the wives,
  Of fathers, sons and husbands
  With interrupted lives.
  I thought about a graveyard
  At the bottom of the sea
  Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
  No, freedom isn't free.

  
  GOD BLESS AMERICA.....HOME OF THE BRAVE....LAND OF THE FREE...

    

  • 2:05 am
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