Memorial Day: With Many Thanks to Those Who Gave All For Us

I can only offer my whole-hearted thanks and gratitude to those who gave their lives for their country.

Here are some past pieces from others that may interest and inspire. (I will add to these as I see more current pieces.)

Today our nation celebrates Memorial Day. Originally called Decoration Day, the holiday started spontaneously in 1866, when a drugstore owner in Waterloo, N.Y., sought to honor those who died in the recent Civil War. Townspeople joined Henry Welles' cause to commemorate the fallen, and they decorated the graves with flowers, wreaths and crosses.Today our nation celebrates Memorial Day. Originally called Decoration Day, the holiday started spontaneously in 1866, when a drugstore owner in Waterloo, N.Y., sought to honor those who died in the recent Civil War. Townspeople joined Henry Welles' cause to commemorate the fallen, and they decorated the graves with flowers, wreaths and crosses.

In short order, others joined around the country and by 1868, according to the History Channel: "Children read poems and sang Civil War songs, and veterans came to school wearing their medals and uniforms ... Then the veterans marched through their hometowns followed by the townspeople to the cemetery." Soon enough, heroes from other wars were honored as well, and the day became Memorial Day.

Abraham Lincoln described our country, in his message to Congress in 1862, as the "last best hope of earth."

Dallas Morning News 2007

• Moving tribute from an Englishman (via The Anchoress who also has some other very good links that you should read):

  ... when the Americans speak of freedom, we should not imagine, in our cynical and worldly-wise way, that they are merely using that word as a cloak for realpolitik. They are not above realpolitik, but they also mean what they say.
  
  These formidable people think freedom is so valuable that it is worth dying for.

• 10 Things to Remember About Memorial Day comes from Mental Floss
  
  
• Lines and Colors has a good post featuring an artist who brought home a depiction of what our soldiers suffer in protecting us at home.

  Art depicting the horror or war is not often brought to the fore, even in museums where major pieces are part of the collection, so it often falls to places like the Hall of Remembrance to keep it on display.
  
  Actually, it’s up to us to look up and remember the images with which artists have tried to impress on us the inhumanity and tragedy of war, particularly when we are asking our friends, neighbors or sons and daughters to face it for any reason.