REMEMBER

REMEMBER a continuing addition to my novel “RUST ON MY SOUL” will be added until the entire novel has appeared. (Published by Bridge Press, 1985) (Distributed Internationally)

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Yesterday was Memorial Day, I wrote the following which hopefully will be shared with folk here and there.

REMEMBER

When the Civil War had come to an end in 1865, a druggist in the little village of Waterloo, NY was concerned that all those who had died in that great struggle would soon be forgotten.

It did not seem right, so he spoke quite firmly to the need for a day of remembrance.

His concern became a committee, and by the spring of 1866 the townspeople had adopted the idea of making wreaths, bouquets and crosses for each veteran’s grave. Flags flew at half mast. There were black streamers and evergreen boughs.

A year later it was all repeated again with speeches and services by a local clergymen commemorating the almost 700,000 lives lost on both sides. They were determined that those who had died would not be forgotten.

In memory of those fallen soldiers, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem simply titled Decoration Day:

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers
Yours has the suffering been
The memory shall be ours.

Decoration Day, before it was officially recognized as Memorial Day; continued as a series of impromptu celebrations honoring the brave men who had died in that war.

Over two dozen claimed they were the birthplace of this Day, but Waterloo was officially given the credit by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966.

During this transition it survived for the obvious reason that remembrance of our brave soldiers good not be allowed to pass to oblivion. What they done and what they had given was too much to even think of letting that happen.

After World War I, all who have died fighting in any war were included, and in 1971, Congress made the last Monday in May the official Memorial Day.

And in so doing gave permanent meaning to some words written by the late Rev. Robert Zoerheid, “Death is what happens between where we are and where the universe is…” Which is to give the celebration of all the battles we have fought for freedom a new and deeper meaning.
All member of our armed forces know theirs is an occupation not without risk. They only ask that those in roles of leadership think long and hard before a conflict is begun and that when the time comes to end it all, it be done with honor.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put it well when he said, “…let us reconstruct ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”

There are certain words that fit the day, indeed seem made for it; courage, respect, sacrifice, commitment, consecration. One soldier summed it up well when he wrote, “All soldiers need the knowledge of one thing…someone must want them to come home.

If a soldier has that …they may be able to make it through anything.”

The timeless challenge is always there and it was spelled out for all future generations by no less than our first President George Washington, “How soon we forget history…Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence.

It is force. And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

We will always argue about wars. It has been so since the beginning of time, but one thing we cannot argue, and that is the Founding Fathers of our country would be proud of all the patriots that have continued to believe in and fight for these United States.
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