While it is
sometimes good to have a day off,
if you are fortunate
enough to have a job.
And it is always
great to have a celebration with friends and family.
(That is),
"first, a day
of remembrance."
We must always
remember that millions of people
around the world and at home
can never celebrate
any day with anyone ever again,
because of wars to
protect our rights to celebrate.
Memorial Day,
originally called Decoration Day,
is a day of
remembrance for those who have died in service of the United States of America.
Over two dozen
cities and towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day.
While Waterloo N.Y.
was officially declared the birthplace
of Memorial Day by President Lyndon
Johnson in May 1966,
it’s difficult to
prove conclusively the origins of the day.
Regardless of the
exact date or location of its origins, one thing is clear
Memorial Day was
borne out of the Civil War and a desire to honor our dead.
It was officially
proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand
Army of the Republic,
in his General Order No. 11.
“The 30th of May,
1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise
decorating the graves of comrades
who died in defense
of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost
every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,”
he proclaimed.
The date of
Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary
of any particular battle.
