Memorial Day
-Jason

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Memorial Day is an American national holiday that commemorates the memory of those men and women who died in the service of the United States.  The holiday is observed annually on the last Monday in May. 

Memorial Day’s earliest origins date to the American Civil War.  This war (fought between 1861 and 1865) claimed the lives of more than 600,000 soldiers.  During this conflict, the bodies of soldiers were usually buried on the battlefield.   If possible, the soldier’s remains were identified, and the location of their burial recorded.  A family who could afford reinternment could pay to have their loved one exhumed and shipped back to their hometown for a private burial.  Women, both relatives and strangers, took it upon themselves to lay flowers or wreaths throughout the numerous cemeteries that contained the fallen soldiers.

The shear size of the war ensured that hundreds of cemeteries were scattered throughout the eastern United States.  The federal government created the United States National Cemetery System in 1868 to aid families who desired to know the final resting places of their loved ones.  This system is still in place today and continuously updated thus allowing survivors members of military families to have a resource to help them identify, and possibly recover, their loved ones.

Reconstruction, the attempted rehabilitation of the former Confederate States of America back into the Union, took place from 1865 and 1877 and there was a great need for a reconciliation between Americans.  In 1868, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Army, called for a "Decoration Day," which was widely celebrated.  Northern cities had previously held small, independent ceremonies to honor their local dead, but no such commemoration had been done on a national scale.  Decoration Day was seen by some as a means of maneuvering the country back to its pre-conflict state.

The former Confederate states were some of the first to conduct official holidays to commemorate their war losses beginning in 1868.  The Georgia legislature passed a state holiday into law in 1874.  These holidays were observed at different times: some held them on Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s birthday, 3 June, while others used the day when he was captured, 10 May.  Across the South, associations were founded, many by women, to establish and care for permanent cemeteries for the Confederate dead, organize commemorative ceremonies, and sponsor appropriate monuments as a permanent way of remembering those who died in service of their “Lost Cause.”.

By 1890, every Northern state had adopted Decoration Day as a holiday and observed it accordingly.  As the twentieth century dawned, the Northern and Southern commemorations were merged.  These Decoration Day observances were extended to honor all Americans who died while in the U.S. military service.  At the turn of the twentieth century, Civil War veterans mingled with current military members and politicians to recall their service and honor their dead.  One of the most striking commemorations took place in 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson gave a speech with surviving Civil War soldiers in the audience.

It was the horrific World Wars fought in the first half of the twentieth century that transformed Decoration Day to a contemporary Memorial Day.  The hundreds of thousands of American killed in these most destructive conflicts quickly overshadowed the losses of the American Civil War.  Those casualties ensured that many more National Cemeteries were created, both in the United States and across the world. 

The World Wars were followed by the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq each with their own long lists of dead.  It was not until 1967 that Decoration Day was officially renamed Memorial Day.  On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved four holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a specified Monday to create a convenient three-day weekend.  The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.

On Memorial Day, the flag of the United States is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon. It is then raised to full staff for the remainder of the day.  The National Memorial Day Concert takes place on the west lawn of the United States Capitol.  Across the United States, the central event is attending one of the thousands of parades held on Memorial Day in large and small cities.