Good Read = HL 305 (2)

10 Things to Remember About Memorial Day

BY David Holzel

May 20, 2019

American flags are placed around the gardens at Boston Common in celebration of Memorial Day

iStock.com/MichelGuenette

Memorial Day is much more than just a three-day weekend and a chance to get the year's first sunburn. It's a time to remember the men and women who sacrificed their lives for their county. Here are some facts to give the holiday some perspective.

1. Memorial Day began as a response to the Civil War.

Memorial Day was a response to the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War, in which a total of some 620,000 soldiers died between both sides. The loss of life and its effect on communities throughout the country led to several spontaneous commemorations of the dead:

In 1864, women from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, put flowers on the graves of their fallen soldiers from the just-fought Battle of Gettysburg. The next year, a group of women decorated the graves of soldiers buried in a Vicksburg, Mississippi, cemetery.

In April 1866, women from Columbus, Mississippi, laid flowers on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers. In the same month, in Carbondale, Illinois, 219 Civil War veterans marched through town in memory of the fallen to Woodlawn Cemetery, where Union hero Major General John A. Logan delivered the principal address. The ceremony gave Carbondale its claim to the first organized, community-wide Memorial Day observance.

Waterloo, New York began holding an annual community service on May 5, 1866. Although many towns claimed the title, it was Waterloo that won congressional recognition as the "Birthplace of Memorial Day."

 2. Major General John A. Logan made the day official.

General Logan, the speaker at the Carbondale gathering, also was commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. On May 5, 1868, he issued General Orders No. 11, which set aside May 30, 1868 "for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion."

The orders expressed hope that the observance would be "kept up from year to year while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades."\

3. Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day.

The holiday was long known as Decoration Day for the practice of decorating graves with flowers, wreaths, and flags. The name Memorial Day goes back to 1882, but the older name didn't disappear until after World War II. It wasn't until 1967 that federal law declared "Memorial Day" the official name.

4. Memorial Day is more of a franchise than a national holiday.

Calling Memorial Day a "national holiday" is a bit of a misnomer. While there are 10 federal holidays created by Congress—including Memorial Day—they apply only to federal employees and the District of Columbia. Federal Memorial Day, established in 1888, allowed Civil War veterans, many of whom were drawing a government paycheck, to honor their fallen comrades without being docked a day's pay.

For the rest of us, our holidays were enacted state by state. New York was the first state to designate Memorial Day a legal holiday, in 1873. Most northern states had followed suit by the 1890s. The states of the former Confederacy were unenthusiastic about a holiday memorializing those who, in General Logan's words, "united to suppress the late rebellion." The South didn't adopt the May 30 Memorial Day until after World War I, by which time its purpose had been broadened to include those who died in all the country's wars.

In 1971, the Monday Holiday Law shifted Memorial Day from May 30 to the last Monday in May.

5. In 1868, future president James Garfield delivered a very, very long speech on the importance of Memorial Day.

Edward Gooch, Getty Images

On May 30, 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant presided over the first Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery—which, until 1864, was Confederate General Robert E. Lee's plantation.

Some 5000 people attended on a spring day which, The New York Times reported, was "somewhat too warm for comfort." The principal speaker was James A. Garfield, a Civil War general, Republican congressman from Ohio and future president.

"I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion," Garfield began, and then continued to utter them. "If silence is ever golden, it must be beside the graves of fifteen-thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem the music of which can never be sung." It went on like that for pages and pages.

As the songs, speeches and sermons ended, the participants helped to decorate the graves of the Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.

6. The first unknown soldier is no longer unknown.

"Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God." That is the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknowns, established at Arlington National Cemetery to inter the remains of the first Unknown Soldier, a World War I fighter, on November 11, 1921. Unknown soldiers from World War II and the Korean War subsequently were interred in the tomb on Memorial Day 1958.

An emotional President Ronald Reagan presided over the interment of six bones, the remains of an unidentified Vietnam War soldier, on November 28, 1984. Fourteen years later, those remains were disinterred, no longer unknown. Spurred by an investigation by CBS News, the defense department removed the remains from the Tomb of the Unknowns for DNA testing.

The once-unknown fighter was Air Force pilot Lieutenant Michael Joseph Blassie, whose jet crashed in South Vietnam in 1972. "The CBS investigation suggested that the military review board that had changed the designation on Lt. Blassie's remains to 'unknown' did so under pressure from veterans' groups to honor a casualty from the Vietnam War," The New York Times reported in 1998.

Lieutenant Blassie was reburied near his hometown of St. Louis. His crypt at Arlington remains permanently empty.

7. The Vietnam veterans' rights group Rolling Thunder will make their final ride into D.C. in 2019.

ANGELA WEISS, AFP/Getty Images

On Memorial Day weekend in 1988, 2500 motorcyclists rode into Washington, D.C. for the first Rolling Thunder rally to draw attention to Vietnam War soldiers still missing in action or prisoners of war. By 2002, the ride had swelled to 300,000 bikers, many of them veterans. There may have been a half-million participants in 2005, in what organizers bluntly call "a demonstration—not a parade."

A national veterans rights group, Rolling Thunder takes its name from the B-52 carpet-bombing runs during the war in Vietnam. But 2019 will mark the group's final ride, due to the logistics and expense of staging the event. "It's just a lot of money," Rolling Thunder co-founder and former Army Sergeant Artie Muller told Military.com.

8. Memorial Day has its own set of customs.

General Orders No. 11 stated that "in this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed," but over time several customs and symbols became associated with the holiday: It is customary on Memorial Day to fly the flag at half staff until noon, and then raise it to the top of the staff until sunset.

Taps, the 24-note bugle call, is played at all military funerals and memorial services. It originated in 1862 when Union General Dan Butterfield "grew tired of the 'lights out' call sounded at the end of each day," according to The Washington Post. Together with the brigade bugler, Butterfield made some changes to the tune.

Not long after, the melody was used at a burial for the first time when a battery commander ordered it played in lieu of the customary three rifle volleys over the grave. The battery was so close to enemy lines, and the commander was worried the shots would spark renewed fighting.

The World War I poem "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrea, inspired the Memorial Day custom of wearing red artificial poppies. In 1915, a Georgia teacher and volunteer war worker named Moina Michael began a campaign to make the poppy a symbol of tribute to veterans and for "keeping the faith with all who died." The sale of poppies has supported the work of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

9. Some states still celebrate a Confederate Memorial Day.

Several Southern states continue to set aside a day for honoring the Confederate dead, which is usually called Confederate Memorial Day. It's on the fourth Monday in April in Alabama, April 26 in Georgia, June 3 in Louisiana and Tennessee, the last Monday in April in Mississippi, May 10 in North and South Carolina, January 19 in Texas, and the last Monday in May in Virginia.

10. Each Memorial Day is a little different.

Mark Wilson, Getty Images

No question that Memorial Day is a solemn event. Still, don't feel too guilty about doing something frivolous (like having barbecue) over the weekend. After all, you weren't the one who instituted the Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1911. That credit goes to Indianapolis businessman Carl Fisher. The winning driver that day was Ray Harroun, who averaged 74.6 mph and completed the race in 6 hours and 42 minutes.

Gravitas returned on May 30, 1922, when the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated. Supreme Court Chief Justice (and former president) William Howard Taft dedicated the monument before a crowd of 50,000 people, segregated by race, and which included a row of Union and Confederate veterans. Also attending was Lincoln's surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln.

In 2000, Congress established a National Moment of Remembrance, which asks Americans to pause for one minute at 3 p.m. in an act of national unity. The time was chosen because 3 p.m. "is the time when most Americans are enjoying their freedoms on the national holiday."

This post originally appeared in 2008.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: David L. Roberts

Date: 5/26/2019 7:47:00 PM

To: MEMORIAL DAY MEMORIES

Subject: EAGLE STANDING WATCH

One of my most favorite photographs is the one below, of a Bald Eagle, the US National Bird, Standing Watch, on a gravestone at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery, taken by photographer Frank Glick.  There is a moving story with it written by journalist Jon Tevlin.  I think you will find it a touching story.
With my best wishes for a safe Memorial Day,
Dave Roberts

Photo of eagle on Fort Snelling gravestone touches hearts, goes viral

Our readers are finding this photo at Fort Snelling National Cemetery worth sharing again, eight years after columnist Jon Tevlin wrote about it.
AUGUST 10, 2011 ­ 12:55PM


FRANK GLICK – .
Frank Glick took this photo of an eagle on a gravestone at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.




JON TEVLIN@JONTEVLIN
Talk to anyone in my business and they'll all say the same thing: No matter how long you write stories and put them in the newspaper, you are never really sure which ones are going to strike a nerve.

What you think might be a Pulitzer-quality epic might draw only a nice call from Mom, while a simple tale tossed off on deadline causes an uproar, or an avalanche of praise. One legendary former investigative reporter at this paper wrote scores of stories that changed laws and saved lives, yet never did he get more mail than when he wrote about burying his cat.

And so it is with my June column on the amateur photographer, the widow and the eagle on a gravestone.

A quick recap: Amateur photographer Frank Glick was on his way to work when he drove through Fort Snelling National Cemetery early one morning. He spotted a bald eagle through the mist, perched on a gravestone, and snapped shots with his aging but ever-present camera.

Nice shot, he thought.

An acquaintance saw the photo and suggested that he see if the deceased soldier had any living relatives who might want it. Indeed, Maurice Ruch's widow was alive and well and delighted to receive a copy of the eagle watching over her beloved husband.

Glick's friend called me. Nice story, I thought.

Then it began.

Mail and calls from Minnesota, then Chicago, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina and finally, Afghanistan. The picture and story had gone viral. I noticed 11,000 people had recommended it on Facebook. I forwarded scores and scores of requests for reprints to Glick. Unfortunately, he had become ill and has been in the hospital off and on since the column ran. Mail piled up. (To reach Glick about the photo, e-mail him at liketophoto@yahoo.com. Be patient.)

"It's been pretty hard to keep up with this stuff," Glick said from his hospital bed. "It's pretty amazing what's going on."

Requests for the photo, and use of the story, have come from the Department of Veterans Affairs, military publications, Arlington National Cemetery. Soldiers in Afghanistan have inquired about the photo, including some from the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division, stationed at Bagram Airfield.

"I sent a good-sized one to a base in Afghanistan because they wanted to build a memorial to members of their unit who had been killed," Glick said.

This letter, from Atlanta, was typical:

"You have no idea just how much this photo and story mean to so many of us who have served. We do not ask for special treatment; we do not ask for your gratitude; we don't even ask for your patience when we occasionally 'geeze' with old stories. We would like to have some understanding just how much service to this great nation means to each of us. Your picture and story show me that some do understand."

One person wrote a poem based on the photo, another wrote a song and a third sent me a short story based on the column. Veterans have called the Fort Snelling cemetery, crying.

Not surprisingly, there were few readers who insisted that the photo was a fake. The bird was too big, they said. There's an aura of light on one side that reflects the use of Photoshop, said others.

"It's not Photoshopped," said Glick. "I did crop it [as did the newspaper]. If I had Photoshopped it, I wouldn't have the eagle's tail covering the name."

He also may have put the eagle on a different headstone to make the composition perfect, he said. "It's a good picture, but it could have been a much greater picture."

Glick took the photo with an older Nikon camera and a multi-purpose lens. He took more than 60 shots of the bird at the cemetery, from different angles and locations. Some are sharp, some are blurry. Some are not very well composed.

"But I just like the feel of this one."

Star Tribune photographers studied the original that Glick sent me and said there's nothing conclusive to say whether it is faked. They also looked at a photo of the bird from the front and said it seemed legitimate, and consistent with the other photo.

As for the size of the bird?

The tombstones rise about 22 inches from the ground. Eagles can grow to 37 inches tall. So the proportion seems right.

I asked a cemetery employee if they ever see eagles.

"All the time," she said. Her boss concurred.

Glick's significant other, Jo Edwards-Johns, got a call from Glick shortly after he shot the photos because he was so excited. She has tried to keep up with the mail between trips to the hospital to be with Glick.

Meanwhile, the woman who received the free print, Vivian Ruch, has likewise been flooded with calls.

"I can't tell you the impact it has had," she said. "It's because it's just not about Maurie, it's about all of them [soldiers]."

"It's just got some quality about it," said Glick. "Sure, I wouldn't mind getting rich off of it, but that probably isn't happening. It makes people feel better. It makes them feel warm and fuzzy. That's what it's for."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full post disclaimer in left column. PCN Home Page is located at: http://pcn.homestead.com/home01.html