EAST HANOVER FLORHAM PARK It Happened in NJ: Remembering New Jersey Heroes this Memorial Day

BY PETER ZABLOCKI GUEST WRITER

AREA - One does not think of parades, medals, or American flags on the battlefield. The soldiers often recall thinking of the person standing directly next to them and how to keep them safe. Many speak of the natural duty to one’s nation and flag. Still, when bullets, mortars, or human charges come at them, and the automated instinct and training take over, most tend to recall extraordinarily little, apart from wanting to survive.

Originally known as Decoration Day in the years following the Civil War, Memorial Day is an American holiday honoring those soldiers who, against all their intentions, never made it home to share their stories with their loved ones.

It is not known what spurred the movement to make the tradition a unified national day of remembrance. Research points to May 5, 1868, when General James Garfield made a speech before thousands of those gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to lay flowers on the graves of the fallen Civil War soldiers. The future President of the United States dubbed the day Decoration Day. Following the event, the loved ones of those who had fallen and, later, other townspeople across the nation began holding springtime tributes to the soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.

These independent gatherings across local United States cemeteries and within distinct communities led to decorations, flags, and flowers gracing countless graves of American veterans and, in many instances, became synonymous with the official start of spring. With each town or state choosing its own date in May, and some not at all, to commemorate those fallen in battle, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968. The legislation designated the last Monday of each May, Memorial Day, making it an official federal holiday.

With the state’s position as one of the original thirteen colonies and later states, the citizens of New Jersey have been involved in every significant American military conflict, beginning with the American Revolutionary War, which established the nation’s independence. The majority of America’s first war as an independent country, where nearly seventy thousand Patriots died throughout the conflict, including many from New Jersey, was fought in the Garden State.

By the time of the Civil War, the bloodiest and most costly war in United States history, more specific record-keeping denotes that nearly 6,300 New Jersey soldiers died between 1861 and 1865. Thirty-five of those men earned the nation’s highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Their stories, while all unique, follow a similar pat- tern of bravery to that of Corporal Charles F. Hopkins, who stayed behind during a fierce battle near Gaines’ Mill, Virginia, to carry a wounded soldier to safety while being twice wounded in the act.

The roughly 2,000 New Jersey cemeteries are full of soldiers who, like Hopkins, buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Boonton, New Jersey, fought and many times died to remind future generations that freedom is not free. In fact, the ever-growing number of veteran burials in the state prompted Governor Thomas H. Kean to dedicate the Garden State’s first state-operated veterans’ cemetery in 1986, named after U.S. Army Brigadier General William C. Doyle and located in Wrightstown. New Jersey is full of individual stories of courage, many recorded for posterity in various levels of detail since the Civil War. As we drive by local burial places blanketed with small American flags and flowers this spring, may we consider the sacrifices and bravery of the men and women underneath the red and white flowers held together with blue ribbons. The Garden State was the home to many heroes. Private Frank J. Bart, buried at Flower Hill Cemetery in North Bergen, when in France during World War I, picked up a heavy machine gun and ran ahead of his line, squeezing the trigger. His heroic charge allowed his