Is there a more miscelebrated holiday in the United States than Memorial Day?
In fact, I’m not sure therte’s a more redundant holiday … unless you want to cite Veterans Day, the one it’s redundant with.
I can’t help but wonder how many people know the difference between the two and why we celebrate both of them.
Memorial Day is the older of the two. It was first celebrated in 1868 to honor those who died fighting in the Civil War. It was originally called Decoration Day and primarily what it entailed was surviving friends and family members going to graveyards and decorating the graves of the honored dead.
No ballgames, no barbecues. In fact, not much fun at all. Simply paying respect to those who died to keep us together and free.
For the first 50 years or so, the only veterans we honored were those who had died. Those who didn’t die had just been doing their duty, something that was not considered a big deal in those days.
World War I changed that. The armistice that ended the war was signed on Nov. 11, 1918, and beginning one year later, November 11th was known was Armistice Day. That was the one with parades and barbecues, although the lateness of the year probably made that difficult in some parts of the country.
The name of the holiday was changed after World War II to reflect all veterans, but it is one of the few federal holidays that doesn’t float to create three-day weekends. MemoriaLDay used to be on May 30 every year. Now it’s the fourth Monday of May, but the original date never had any real significance.
But when the government tried to do the same thing to Veterans Day in the early 1970s, there was a huge uproar. You see, the November 11th date meant something.
All the men in the two generations of my family before me — father, stepfather, uncle and grandfathers — served in the world wars. No one in my generation or the ones after me served in the military at all.
I’m thankful that all five men survived their wars, so Memorial Day doesn’t affect me personally.
I’ll still honor it, and I won’t barbecue or go to a ballgame.