A Day of Remembrance
May 28, 2012 (Monday)
What is Memorial Day? It is one of several designated federal holidays, observed annually on the last Monday of May. It is the first barbecue of the season. It is the unofficial beginning of the summer season. It is an occasion for a Memorial Day Sale at stores. Sad to say, all these things can obscure the true meaning of Memorial Day, a day of remembrance honoring those who have given their lives in the service of their country.
Some who read this blog today know all too well what it feels like to grieve over the death of a loved one who came home from the war in a flag-draped casket. Freedom isn’t free. All around the world today are cemeteries with row upon row of gravestones which mark the final resting places of Americans who died that we might have the freedoms we love. We honor them and their families today.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
(From Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen, written in September 1914)