Memorial Day has a distinguished and necessary history

There are many versions of how Memorial Day began. But with little to no exception, the purpose for its beginning is always the same: To honor those who sacrificed their best and all for our country. One compelling version offered in governmental records is that of former slaves in the South burying more than 200 Union soldiers who had sacrificed their lives to free those slaves. Another comes from Columbus, Mississippi, on April 25, 1866, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in the battle at Shiloh. Nearby were graves of Union soldiers, neglected because they had been the enemy. Disturbed at that realization, the women took some of the flowers they had intended for Confederate graves and placed them on the graves of those Union soldiers.

Years ago Memorial Day was a day for gathering in communities or at church cemeteries and cleaning and improving the graves of those buried there.

Today Memorial Day is pretty much a ruled and regulated federal holiday. The main celebration is held, with good reason, at Arlington National Cemetery. The emphasis, however, still is on those who have sacrificed their best and all in service to this nation. For without them, there would be little opportunity to notice the success and sacrifice of these men and women.

My father was one of those military men. Awarded the Silver Star and other highly regarded medals in World War II, he also served in the Korean War. In WWII he was offered a battlefield commission but he declined it, explaining that his lack of formal education made him unworthy of the rank. I have always used my father as my measuring stick for others who made that commitment to serve this nation and wore that commitment with pride. I have assumed that not only was their courage equal to his but so was their integrity.

My father, born in 1916, ran away from home at age 9 because of very troubling circumstances. His formal education ended at the fourth grade as he hired himself out to work on various farms in South Georgia. But what my father lacked in formal education he made up for with his work ethic. I see that work ethic today in the lives of my two sons. Dad entered the Army at the start of WWII. By that time he had married my mother and he and she were parents of twin baby girls. Once he completed basic training, my mother, my sister and I joined him whenever we could, wherever he was stationed. Later in his career he had assignments to which he would go where we could not, and Mom would truly keep the home fires burning.

When he was away, he wrote religiously to my mother. The letters came every day, it seemed. She would open them and read his words to my sister and me, and then she would blush and quietly say, the rest is for just me. When I think of the two of them then, I often laugh and say the war would have ended two years earlier if Mom and Dad had been in charge! That may sound outlandish and foolish but only if you don’t understand that Memorial Day is more about the quality and caliber of people who served than the parades, the flowers and the ceremonies. Those who have served as my father did had unbreakable backbones, definitive determination, and lived “trust in God.” They were and are the glue that has held this nation together, prompted it forward, and kept it from sinking into disaster. And you will find them and the families who’ve followed them sprinkled across this nation living out — if they are wise — what they learned from those genuine heroes of the past.

Every year on Memorial Day I place American flags in my flower beds across my front yard in honor of those, like my father, who have given their best and their all. But at the corner of my house I place one flag alone in honor of my mother, because “those who wait endlessly for those who serve valiantly” deserve recognition.

Years ago Memorial Day was a day for gathering in communities or at church cemeteries and cleaning and improving the graves of those buried there. Today Memorial Day is pretty much a ruled and regulated federal holiday. The main celebration is held, with good reason, at Arlington National Cemetery. The emphasis, however, still is on those who have sacrificed their best and all in service to this nation.