True meaning of Memorial Day

Memorial Day is fast approaching.

But there's a problem. Most people have come to look upon Memorial Day as a kickoff for summer, a time for picnics and barbecues. Memorial Day is much, much more than that.

We need to remember and we need to offer our respect for those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to hold in sacred reverence the memory of those who died serving their country. We need to ensure that they are never forgotten.

Over the years, the original meaning and sprit of Memorial Day has faded from the public consciousness.

If it is considered a holiday, why? I consider it to be a national day of mourning. That is how we observe the day in our home. Because of what that day represents, the rest of the days of the year are our holidays.

Memorial Day is a day to stop and pay, with sincere conviction, our respects for those who died protecting and preserving the freedoms we enjoy, for they are owed more than we can ever repay.

On May 5, 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of Union Army veterans, established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30, a date believed to be chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

Unfortunately, when Congress made Memorial day part of a mandatory three-day weekend through the National Holiday act of 1971, it made it all that much easier for us to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day.

It wasn't until after World War I that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971 Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then that it was also assigned to the last Monday in May, similar to other federal holidays relocated to Mondays.

These veterans lived and died, but not in vain, for they paused with us on their way to immortality--and our world is a better place for their efforts.

Let us never forget the sacrifices of those men and women--Our Patriots--who have paid the ultimate price to defend their country's freedom.

May they rest in Peace.

The perpetual light shines upon them.


Richard Kendzierski is the chairman of the Bedford Joint Veterans Council. (Bedford Sun)