This weekend, we celebrate Memorial Day. Originally known as Decoration Day, the last Monday in May honors those men and women who died while serving in the military.
Some years, I have let this holiday pass without even a private observance. I don’t want to do that this year. I hope you won’t either. At the bottom of this post, I’ve listed a few ideas for making the most of Memorial Day for your family.
A friend sent these editorial cartoons to me. I love editorial cartoons because the artist communicates so much in a few square inches. I hope these inspire, convict, and bring a smile.
Easy Ideas for Celebrating Memorial Day with Your Family
- Bow in prayer before your Memorial Day cookout and include thanks to God for those that gave the ultimate sacrifice.
- Gather around the computer and watch a great YouTube video like this, this, and this:
- Invite a relative or family friend who served in the military to share a story of a friend who died in the course of his or her duties. If you can’t do this in person, call on the phone and gather around the speaker phone.
- Participate in a flag retirement ceremony.
- Ask your neighborhood property owners association to lower your neighborhood’s flag to half-mast.
- Watch the movie, Taking Chance. (Appropriate for children over age eight. Of course, use your discretion.)
- Buy a book like The American Patriot’s Almanac and read the story behind and the text of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
- Post an American flag on your blog.
- Buy a simple, ready-made bouquet of flowers from a local grocery store and visit a local cemetery. Find a simple, white headstone of one who died in the military and decorate the grave in the great tradition of Decoration Day. It doesn’t matter if you know the person’s family or story.
Please use the comments below to tell me how your family honored our soldiers.
Tony Perkins of Family Research Council penned these words:
Where Poppies Blow
Until about 40 years ago, Memorial Day was observed–not celebrated–on May 30 every year. Eager Cub Scouts would work their way through the crowds at small town parades selling bright red artificial poppies. In reviewing stands, graying veterans would salute or place their hands over their hearts as high school bands marched by. Often a young girl would be called upon to read the World War I era poem “In Flanders Fields” that describes the poppies blowing row upon row among the graves of fallen warriors of the Great War.
You can gain a real appreciation of Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery. There, soldiers of the Third Army, the ceremonial “Old Guard” will place little American flags on thousands of well-tended graves. Visitors will be told the story of Arlington, how Col. Robert E. Lee paced the floors of the Custis-Lee mansion back in 1861, praying and pondering. He had to decide whether to serve in the U.S. Army to which he had dedicated his life or to leave the Union with his beloved Virginia. The terrible Civil War that followed for four long and bitter years helped to fill thousands of graves at Arlington, once Lee’s beautiful hilltop home.
When the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated in 1921 at Arlington, President Wilson spoke as a Bible was included among the objects placed in the cornerstone of this sacred space. Today, 24 hours a day, Tomb guards march their appointed rounds, honoring those who have fallen to defend our freedoms. The bumper sticker dates from our own time, but the sentiment it expresses goes all the way back: “America–land of the free because of the brave.”
Americans have always loved their country. We love our country still. And we have a special reverence for those who gave what Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion.” Even today, with casualties in the War on Terror mercifully coming down, there are still flag-draped caskets returning regularly to Dover Air Force Base. There are fresh graves being filled daily at Arlington–and across America. So great is the call of America that even foreigners feel its pull. The Marquis de Lafayette–a brave hero of our Revolution–took home to France enough American soil to bury his earthly remains. In recent years, Memorial Day has become the occasion for sales at the mall, cookouts, rock concerts, and days at the beach. Our fallen heroes died for this America too. They knew that a certain lightheartedness, of ever-youthful exuberance, is a part of what it means to pursue happiness. It is for all of this, the paths of laudable pursuit, the fruits of honest toil, that America stands. May we always be worthy of those who died to give this America to us.
I believe we need to thank and honor those in uniform every day. As I read this article, however, I couldn’t help but wonder if President Obama is doing what so many of us do: blurring the lines between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. What do you think?
The poem written in answer to In Flanders Fields:
We Shall Keep the Faith
by Moina Michael, November 1918
Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
(and she was a teacher at UGA 🙂 ) http://www.greatwar.co.uk/umbrella/ffpopmoina.htm