Meaning of Memorial Day becoming a memory

[flamingyouth]

Memory wrestles with forgetting.

Memorial Day is supposed to be about parades honoring fallen warriors, about public speeches that reflect on the past. At one point in U.S. history, the holiday was a time of widespread civic duty. Americans would reflexively stop what they were doing to put flowers and flags on the graves of loved ones or strangers who died serving the country.

Memorial Day has become a crush of humanity rushing to rock music concerts and spring festivals. Some people stay at home and give their undivided attention to six-packs and T-bones. Others make a beeline to department store sales.

What was at one time a symbolically rich holiday has turned into a three-day, leave-your-troubles-behind, getaway weekend.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/271852_robert27.html

[izzie]

1. Yar as a family we used to go and clean up graves,

Grave yards seem more lonely now but I just figured it was my age. Maybe it is because so many live so far from where they came from and that is where the graves are?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. When I lived in IL

I'd visit Mound City National Cemetery. Mound City was where the Union ironclads were built, and where the casualties from Ft. Donaldson and Ft. Henry were brought. It is quite sobering to read the tombstones-some men were scalded to death when their ironclad was struck by enemy fire. There are dozens of graves marked "Unknown". I can go to a place like that and literally feel the "last ounce of their devotion"--which makes the situation our country is in now all the more poignant.

[izzie]

6. I do family history so have been in many grave yards also

as I come from NE and grave stone are a true art form from out past they are very interesting to visit.. It is a history in it self. With types of stones for different ages. Grave yards are really classed as family plots where cemetery are public grounds. We have one town near that must have 500 plots and who in the early days would carry a person for a long way so it was into the back yard. Interesting that you can go to some that are miles into the woods but their will be a flag on it on the 30th if it was a service man. I once found an ancestor way up in the wood in a plot with about 6 graves and as he was in the Rev. a new flag was on his grave. I have know people who do this work and it is out of love and really work. It is hard finding some of these little grave yards. Most historical society will have small hand drawn maps. VFW types do this work also. Interesting side line. Can rarely find Mayflower graves as they hide them as they were worried about the Indians knowing just how weak they were.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. When I lived near Carbondale IL

I'd go to the cemetery where a lot of Civil War era people are buried, including a mass grave for a gruop of freed blacks who had contracted cholera and died. There's even a sepulchure above ground for a Southern refugee who died and as her last wish was not "buried" in Yankee soil. The local reenactors are there each Memorial Day; this is one of the places where they claim the "first" Memorial Day services took place, and they may be right. John A. Logan, a Union General during the war and politician both before and after, declared the day Memorial Day for the Grand Army of the Republic, of which he was head, soon after the War. I'm sure he got the idea from the ceremony at this cemetery.

[khashka]

3. You sound like me!

I haven't supported all the wars we've fought.

But the men and women who gave their lives? If we don't remember and honour them.... we'll never be able to respect ourselves.

Respect is due.... and if we can't take a day off of our busy shallow lives to give that respect? Then what and who are we?

Khash.

[oneighty]

5. How true

I was moved to look up Memorial Day on Wikipedia to remind me what it was/is about.

The meaning is lost within another three day weekend.

180

[Skittles]

7. the worst is HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

WTF???