Once a year, on the last Monday in May, we set aside a day to honor our fellow Americans who made the greatest of all sacrifices, gave their lives, so that the rest of us could continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty and security.
Memorial Day was born after the Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, and claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.
Families would take a day to tend and decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers. It soon spread to the North and became known as Decoration Day. Eventually, it became a national holiday to honor all American military veterans who gave up their homes, their families, their very lives – everything they had, or ever dreamed of having – all in sacrifice for their country.
And just how many have made that ultimate sacrifice? From the Revolutionary War to the War of 1812, Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the other wars, police actions and rescue missions around the world since 1776, over one million, three hundred and eight thousand Americans have died in uniform.
No American should take this for granted or ignore it. It shouldn’t be left to just the Gold Star families alone, those parents who lost a son or daughter, children who lost a mom or dad, brother or sister, to take a pause for a somber reminder of the price of our benefits as citizens. We owe it all to them to show respect in some way for those whose deaths gave us our lives.
The meanings of our Military holidays are different. Veteran’s Day is for honoring those who served and survived.
Armed Forces Day, the third Saturday of each May, is for honoring those who are currently serving.
Memorial Day, however, is reserved for honoring those who died while serving and never got to take off their uniforms.
Despite the distortions of America’s history that so many people want to force into our schools, the fact is that no people in the history of the world have experienced the liberties, opportunities, or prosperity that we have enjoyed as citizens of the greatest country on God’s green earth – the United States of America. No other nation has ever given its inhabitants the degree of freedom, security, and pursuit of happiness as has this extraordinary experiment in self- government called the United States.
One thing we can do from wherever we are is to stop for a moment and think of all the rows and rows of crosses in veterans’ cemeteries, and say a prayer of thanks for them, and remember that each and every cross represents a genuine American hero who made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.
As was once said: Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom. Let us be thankful.