Today is Memorial Day, and I’m pleased to see many comments about the real meaning of the day. They’re not about the start of barbecue season either!
Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1866, just after the Civil War, to honor those who died in that conflict. Now this holiday acknowledges those who gave their lives in combat so that fellow countrymen and women could live in peace and harmony.
Years ago Earl and I started a tradition of visiting a cemetery on this day and looking for a grave of some soldier who died in the service of this country. Sometimes we’d find someone who’d fallen in the first World War, sometimes the second World War, sometimes Vietnam.
Our tradition included more recent but less well-known twenty-first century wars too. Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, Niger, and Syria.
How sad that peace and harmony still have not been attained after more than 150 years, and we continue to remember more and more fallen on this Memorial Day.
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