Memorial Day 2017

Memorial Day began as Decoration Day a day when the graves of Civil War Union soldiers were decorated with flowers and flags. In the South a similar custom was done to recognize and remember their dead from that terrible and costly war. Estimates vary but about 620,000 died in the Civil War. Decoration Day was celebrated independently in many states.

An official commemoration was held in Carbondale, Illinois in 1866, and on May 5, 1868, Maj. Gen. John A. Logan commander of the Union Civil War veterans' organization the Grand Army of the Republic, in General Order No. 11 designated May 30 to be Decoration Day. That order includes the following:

"We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, 'of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.' What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. 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.

If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us."

More wars and more dead expanded the commemorations to include the United States' military dead from all wars, but it was not until 1971 that Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.