Each year on this special day, America speaks with a common voice to commemorate and honor those virtuous comrades of courage who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of our freedom. We honor them not only for their willingness to pay the highest price in life but to remind ourselves to renew our personal commitment and that of our nation to the ideals of this democracy and to join each other in prayer for a true and lasting peace.
The history of this day is the very evidence that this reminder is important and true. After the Civil War ended, many communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war and as a memorial to those who had died from both the Union and Confederate Armies. General John A. Logan is widely credited with birthing the idea of a national holiday memorial observance. In 1868, in his capacity as Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans organization, by way of a general order proclaimed that "Decoration Day" be observed nationwide. In a stirring pronouncement on the importance of venerating these fallen heroes and to acknowledge their sacrifice and publicly demonstrate their significance he said,
"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 race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance….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 people the cost of a free and undivided republic."
The official name was changed by Federal Law in 1967 to Memorial Day and one year later this was one of four holidays declared to be observed annually on a Monday. In this case, the last Monday in May. And although there is much criticism that for some the traditional observance has diminished over the years and that it has just become a three day weekend filled with yard work and barbeques, there are some notable exceptions.
(1). Arlington National Cemetery is widely considered the "most sacred land in America" and a place of "reverence and remembrance." And although much has been written about the importance of this place and its stature as the embodiment of Memorial Day, it is the visual image of hundreds of thousands of white crosses and markers that punctuate the landscape and over look the Potomac which more eloquently describes the importance and the significance of our commitment to remember and to bring honor.
As a demonstration of this commitment, since the late 50's on the Thursday before Memorial Day soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry, 1,200 of them, place small American Flags at each of the nearly 300,000 graves at the Cemetery. Then they patrol all day and night during the weekend to insure the flags remain standing.
(2). As another example in 1950 Congress by Joint Resolution requested the President to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace and to designate a period on that day when the people of the United States might unite in prayer. And:
In the year 2000 Congress established The White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance, whish is tasked with the responsibility to unite the Country in a National Moment of Remembrance at 3:00 p.m. on Memorial Day, and thereby reclaiming Memorial Day as the sacred and noble holiday it was meant to be.
(I certainly encourage all to participate in this years National Moment of Remembrance).
(3). And finally, it is fitting that we recognize this special observance here today at Fairmount Memorial Park, as well as others through out the region, as this city's, this community's public demonstration and commitment to the importance of this day of remembrance, this day of honoring those men and women who have served and have been lost and that as our commitment as Americans we will stand with those families who grieve and will share in their sorrow, and their great pride.
Because the price we pay for war is so dear and so personal, we have, as a country, approached it with much reluctance. Memorial Day observances such as this one are particularly difficult when we are at war. But it is also during wartime when we must be most vigilant in honoring these fine men and women who were citizens of our own City and this region who join the more than 1000 U.S. soldiers that have died in Iraq since last Memorial Day. Soldiers as such Army Specialist Bobby Benson who graduated from North Central High School and died at the age of 20 in 2003. And recently, Marine Corporal Darrell Morris, who was from Spokane, graduated from Ferris High School and died at the age of 21 just this past January.
And as we wage another foreign war, and as our children fight and die in the name of these United States of America, we are saddened by the reality of lives shortened, of families denied their future. This war, like all wars, is steeped in politics and controversy. The apparent appetite for justification and derision is likely not to be soon satisfied.
But in honor of this Memorial Day, we must set aside these distractions and focus on their valor and commitment to duty and country in the cause of freedom and to bestow upon them the appreciation of a grateful nation for the gift of their lives such that their sacrifices will not be in vain. We will honor each of them today, whether the loss of life was long passed or just passed, if we continue to commit ourselves to the ideals best expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address:
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are born in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
