More Than the Day the Swimming Pool Opens

The story is told of a teacher who asked the students in the class about the importance of Memorial Day. The enthusiastic response came quickly. “It is the day the swimming pool opens.”

Memorial Day does mark the beginning of the summer season in many ways. But Memorial Day is more than a time for frolicking in the sun or splashing in the water. Memorial Day is a day for reverent remembrance, a day of honoring those who have given their lives in the service of this nation.

Most Americans have basked in the blessings of this nation for so long that the human cost of freedom and democracy seem unreal. We are conscious of “my rights” but have little appreciation for the cost of securing and preserving those “rights.” Stories of suffering and dying for freedom are as unrealistic to us as the latest made-for-TV movie.

Memorial Day challenges our forgetfulness. Memorial Day reminds us of the price paid by men and women through the centuries for freedom, for democracy and for human rights. Memorial Day focuses on the cost paid for these blessings one person at a time.

More than two dozen communities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. What can be established without question is that the first official Memorial Day, then called Decoration Day, occurred May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery.  General John Logan, commander of the General Army of the Republic, proclaimed May 30 a time to recognize the “cost of a free and undivided republic.”

That day the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers were honored by the nearly 5,000 persons who participated in special ceremonies.

It was not until after World War I that the day expanded to honor those who died in all American wars and, in 1971, an act of Congress made Memorial Day a national holiday instead of a state-sponsored event as it had been for more than a century.

This Memorial Day, Monday, May 28, American flags will adorn graves of soldiers buried in national cemeteries including the Mobile National Cemetery and the Fort Mitchell National Cemetery in Seale, Ala. Memorial Day ceremonies will feature the precision marching and drills of smartly dressed military personnel. The sad, haunting sounds of taps will echo from brass bugles. Prayers and speeches will be the order of the day.

Some participants will wear red poppies which have come to symbolize “that blood of heroes never dies.” The line comes from a stanza of a poem written in 1915 by Moina Michael who wrote, “We cherish too, the poppy red that grows on fields where valor led. It seems to signal to the skies that blood of heroes never dies.”

In many places, the Red Poppy Movement continues to sell red paper poppies to help raise money for veterans’ needs.

More recently Congress endorsed the National Moment of Remembrance. At 3 p.m. on Memorial Day, the nation is asked to observe one minute of silence to honor and remember those who have died in service to the United States.

Some will mourn on Memorial Day. When one has lost a loved one, every remembrance carries a mournful side. Time may teach one to live with the pain of loss but time does little to dull the pain itself.

All will be reverent, for it is impossible to stand amid the testimony of sacrifice by the more than 1.1 million men and women who have died for this country without being brought to pause by what they have done.

Nations build monuments honoring the accomplishments and sacrifices of its fallen. That is important. It is important, too, that individuals acknowledge their personal and profound appreciation for the contributions made by these martyrs of the nation.

That was the sentiment voiced more than 2,000 years ago when the Athenian leader Pericles offered tribute to his fallen comrades. Pericles said, “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions but there dwells also an unwritten memorial to them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.”

That is what Memorial Day is about. Memorial Day writes on individual hearts an appreciation for the cost of freedom. That is more, much more, than the day the swimming pool opens.