Chapter 5: Among Oth- ers, Civil War Event Me- morial Day Chapter 6: Local

Chapter 5: Among Others, Civil War Event Memorial Day

Memorial Day events only happened in the United States in the late 19th century (1800s). Similar types of events have been held the world over for thousands of years.

“The ancient Greeks and Romans held annual days of remembrance for loved ones (including soldiers) each year, festooning their graves with flowers and holding public festivals and feasts in their honor... Among those, one of the earliest commemorations in the United States was organized after the Civil War, by recently freed African Americans. Thousands of Union soldiers were prisoners of war in POW camps in Charleston, South Carolina. Two hundred and fifty prisoners died from exposure and disease and were interred in a mass grave. Three weeks after the Confederate surrender, an unusual procession entered the former camp: On May 1, 1865, more than 1,000 people recently freed from enslavement, accompanied by regiments of the U. S. Colored Troops and a handful of white Charlestonians, gathered in the camp to consecrate a new, proper burial site for the Union dead. The group sang hymns, gave readings, and distributed flowers around the cemetery, which they dedicated to the ‘Martyrs of the Race Course’” [20]

General John Logan issued a decree in 1868 (Decoration Day) to commemorate the deaths of 620,000 soldiers killed in the Civil War asking Americans to lay flowers at the graves of the war dead.

Memorial Day did not become a National Holiday until 1971. The date, May 30 had been selected because it was a date that did not fall on an anniversary date of a Civil War Battle. Boalsburg, Pennsylvania is one of 20 towns that make the claim of Memorial Day starting there.

Even from these times, Americans were associating May 30

with the arrival of Summer and a long weekend, and this date had been challenged until 1971.

As you celebrate this Memorial Day having the day off work, going fishing, to the pool, or attending the National Moment of Remembrance with the Sounding of Taps, please remember those who are not here today. Remember those on our front lines. Remember those names from Mifflin County who sacrificed and died in our country’s wars, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Enduring Freedom, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan to name only a few.

Look at the names on “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” listing those killed. These aren’t names of the men we see in paintings from the French and Indian War or the American Revolutionary War. These soldiers were from Mifflin County who lived among us not that long ago — our fellow neighbors, friends, students, countrymen. Fellow citizens who many never knew and would never have that opportunity.

It continues in those areas of conflict where Special Forces go today that we don’t know about — to fight those who would try to destroy us. Except for a few names, we will never know who made the immense and ultimate sacrifice.

There are those in Special Forces from here, protecting us even as you read this. Please remember them, their sacrifices, their days, months, years, and some, a lifetime away from their families. Children who will lose a parent — or a parent who will lose a son or daughter. Hard losses that they know deep in their hearts had to be given.

We owe an immense gratitude to them and to ourselves to keep this country free from our known enemies, and also from those enemies within.

At some point think about being in that wet, muddy, dirty foxhole, mud soaking through to your feet, your clothes are wet, and you are being shot at. Think of the booby traps, a close hit by an RPG or an IED exploding under your vehicle — the resulting sounds, smells, aches, pains, dust and dirt, the loss of a limb, no sleep, the noise, the fear, the marching, running, jumping, screaming — the silence.

On Memorial Day we remember those who were silenced.

LEONARD

Insurance Agency

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