Daily Lesson for Memorial Day, May 28, 2018

A Lesson in observance of Memorial Day:

Today is Memorial Day, a day set aside for remembering those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our country. 

Memorial Day’s history can be traced to the years following the Civil War, when on particular yet separate days, individual States would set aside a day for families to go and decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. Thus, in the early days, the special day was called Decoration Day. As the observance began to be less familial and more civic and the North and South began to bind the wounds of the nation, the day’s name was formally changed and the day standardized to the first Monday in May.

For most Americans today, Memorial Day will not be a day of visiting graves or civic gathering. It will be a day of cookouts and birthdays and working in the yard. 

This may be sad, but a reality is that most Americans are very far from the military and its causalities today. During the Civil War 700,000  lives were lost. Almost every family had or knew of someone fallen. Today less than 1 percent of the total US populace is currently serving in the military and the demographic of those who serve  is increasingly rural and also Hispanic. This means many of us do not even know someone off serving our country today, much less someone who has died for it.

There are still public gatherings of remembrance, often sponsored by the VFW or the American Legion. We usually have to actively seek them in order to find them and they usually occur in the early morning. We may have already missed the opportunity to show up and pay respect. But there is still the opportunity to take a small part of the day and visit a cemetery.  We may not be able to find the grave of a service member killed in action, but it’s still a good time to talk to the children about the meaning of Memorial Day.

The burden of our freedom has fallen ever greater now on the few and also on the minority. The rest of us can never truly know the price freedom; but we can pause to recognize the fact that its cost is dear.