Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.
There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50’s on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye’s Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.
The initial post, “The History of Memorial Day” is certainly correct in many of the traditional observances no longer take place. The Episcopal Church that I have attended for the past four years has never utter one word, sang a national hymn, in observance of Memorial Day. In our case, the National Hymns in the Hymnal might just as well be removed, because we never use them.
May 10 is also Confederate Memorial Day in North Carolina. The Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Sons of Union Veterans hold a joint remembrance at the Civil War memorial in Asheville on the Saturday nearest May 10. I serve as Secretary and Treasurer of the Department of North Carolima, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, and am a past commander of the Daniel Ellis Camp of the SUVCW in Asheville.
In the little cemetery in my home town every soldier’s grave had a flag placed on it.
Including my Dad’s.