Memorial Day: "Hallowed Grounds"

nddons

nddons

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To all the warriors and patriots that I know, and those that I don't: this Memorial Day, please also remember those that never returned - http://www.abmc.gov/home.php

I look at the American Battle Monuments Commission site every Memorial Day weekend, and today I noticed that PBS has a show on Memorial Day entitled "Hallowed Grounds" (link in above site) for a "rare look at America's overseas commorative cemeteries and how our country keeps faith with her fallen."

I plan on visiting the National Cemetery on the Rock Island (IL) Arsenal on Monday to pay my respects.
 
All: Per United States Code. Title 4, Chapter 1, §6, the flag is to be flown at half-staff from daybreak until 12 noon on Memorial Day, then raised to the peak for the remainder of the day.
 
Memorial Day - great; a day off!
But - it is much more than that. Spend a few moments in reflection, or if you are not aware of its significance - read a little about it to gain understanding of why you get not only this day off, but why every day for us is 'free' because of the generosity and courage of others!

Some links I found describing the origins and importance of this day:

http://www1.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_day
 
I need to vent a couple of my pet peeves.

1. This is not a day to remember and visit grandma & grandpa grave sites, unless they were killed in the defense of our country. While honoring grandma & grandpa is a good thing, today is NOT the day to do it. Doing so dilutes the true meaning of Memorial Day, a day to remember our war dead.

2. Please do not ever say "They Paid the ultimate sacrifice." It is; They Made the ultimate sacrifice. You cannot pay a sacrifice, you make a sacrifice. Our war dead paid with their lived to defend our country. They made the ultimate sacrifice for their brother's in arms, their country, and their families and they paid for it with their lives.

3. Please do not honor current or past Veterans during Memorial Day. That should be done on Veteran's Day and Armed Forces (we should honor them every day IMHO). Memorial Day is (should be) reserved for honoring our war dead and nothing more, but the masses are incapable of understanding what sacrafices these men and woman made (not paid) to give us the freedoms we have today.

That is all, carry on.
 
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Hey, I'll visit the graves of family members any day I please.
 
Geico266 said:
I need to vent a couple of my pet peeves.

1. This is not a day to remember and visit grandma & grandpa grave sites, unless they were killed in the defense of our country. While honoring grandma & grandpa is a good thing, today is NOT the day to do it. Doing so dilutes the true meaning of Memorial Day, a day to remember our war dead.

2. Please do not ever say "They Paid the ultimate sacrifice." It is; They Made the ultimate sacrifice. You cannot pay a sacrifice, you make a sacrifice. Our war dead paid with their lived to defend our country. They made the ultimate sacrifice for their brother's in arms, their country, and their families and they paid for it with their lives.

3. Please do not honor current or past Veterans during Memorial Day. That should be done on Veteran's Day and Armed Forces (we should honor them every day IMHO). Memorial Day is (should be) reserved for honoring our war dead and nothing more, but the masses are incapable of understanding what sacrafices these men and woman made (not paid) to give us the freedoms we have today.

That is all, carry on.
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I trust you aren't implying that my original post yielded this post. I have posted here before honoring veterans on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. My dad, a WWII veteran of D+1 and The Bulge, taught me all about Memorial Day. Thus, my post was absent praise for current and past Veterans, other than imploring them and others to not forget those who never returned. Many of my dad's band of brothers are buried overseas.
 
nddons said:
My dad, a WWII veteran of D+1 and The Bulge, taught me all about Memorial Day.
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Did I ever mention that I met your dad's old boss once?

It was a Memorial day in the 1970's. My father also a WW2 vet (north Africa, Europe, the Pacific (Corrigedor 1945), took me to the yearly event at the local Army base. I remember that day especially because after the ceremony dad took me up to a old man in a wheel chair and introduced me to him. My dad called him General Bradley. The man in wheel chair had 5-stars on his uniform and I knew that was a pretty high rank. I shook the man's hand and thought that he looked nothing like Karl Malden did in the movie Patton. But I was and still am impressed that I got to meet him. He was the leader of the invasion on D-Day. A day that was the riskiest day ever for America and he was instrumental in our winning WW2. At that time he was the last 5-star general alive and the last of the great WW2 commanders.
 
nddons said:
To all the warriors and patriots that I know, and those that I don't: this Memorial Day, please also remember those that never returned - http://www.abmc.gov/home.php

I look at the American Battle Monuments Commission site every Memorial Day weekend, and today I noticed that PBS has a show on Memorial Day entitled "Hallowed Grounds" (link in above site) for a "rare look at America's overseas commorative cemeteries and how our country keeps faith with her fallen."

I plan on visiting the National Cemetery on the Rock Island (IL) Arsenal on Monday to pay my respects.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that note. I visited the website and viewed the slideshow on the Point du Hoc aspect of D-Day.

I missed the PBS show, though.

I've been to several national cemeteries in the US, and at least one in Europe (I may have visited others when I was too young to remember.) The one I saw as an adult is in Luxembourg, where Gen. Patton is buried along with most of his guys from the Battle of the Bulge. I didn't know what to expect, so I went into the office at the front gate. An American was in there, I didn't even think about it being an American cemetery so why wouldn't an American be in charge of the place? We talked for a while, then I went inside.

I came through the gate, and just had to stop.

It took me a long time to walk around in there.
 
The PBS special was fantastic. What was really amazing was the care that the local folks be they French, or Dutch or Phillipinos still give the US war dead. Very moving!

An odd observation and it may just be me but I see civilian cemetaries as very sad morbid places but when I view these cemetaries ( I've been to Arlington and Quantico I don't see them that way. I see them in a much brighter way. perhaps its because those that are laid to rest there are still cared for in such a reverent way, they are not forgotten and they are amongst comrades.
 
Memorial Day is, to me, not about veterans or those currently in service; it is about those who didn't survive to be veterans. To lump in the rest of us seems to me to lose sight of the sacrifice they made.
 
I haven't decided which cemeteries hit me the hardest: The national cemeteries where you can see grave markers from nearly every conflict this country has endured - that include those killed in action or who managed to survive it and were buried as veterans, or the memorials where specific events took place (like the WWII cemeteries in Europe).
 
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