Memorial Day is approaching and I wanted to convey my desire and hope that everyone will remember what this day is really for.  While it’s nice that we get an “extra free day off from work”, let’s remember WHY and HOW this day came to be.  It’s not a day to just focus on BBQs, relaxation, parties, swimming, etc.  Those things are fun to do, so yes, do them, but take some time to honor this day and pay your respects somehow.    Let’s remember and “never forget”.  

The Site of the Gettysburg Address

 “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate–we cannot consecrate–we cannot hallow–this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here, have, thus far, so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom–and that, government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not  perish from the earth.”

Time after that speech was made, people were seen decorating grave sites of Civil War vets, both Union and Confederate,  during the war and it evolved from there.   Though the South refused to honor their fallen on the same day as the Union, that eventually changed after World War 1 when the day was changed to include all those Americans who died an any wartime.   

Please remember all of those people who died for your freedoms.  Who made it possible for you to enjoy your parties, BBQs, fishing, and everything else this weekend.  Without them, we could still be British territory, speaking French, speaking Spanish (Spanish-American War),or even speaking German under a Kaiser’s rule or Nazi Flags (WW I & II) .  Let’s also not forget the wars in Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq.  All of these fallen soldiers aren’t able to enjoy these fun filled weekends and freedoms.  They died so we could, among other more important things.   

So please, honor them.  Honor this day.  

Sincerely,  

Todd Preble  

American Flags

Sources:  My own memory from school as well as http://www.wildwestweb.net/cwphotos.html