Day to remember nation’s war dead

THE ISSUE Americans observe Memorial Day to honor men and women killed in wars past and present.

AMERICANS need reminding that this is not just the three-day weekend that begins the summer months, but a day to commemorate members of the military who gave their lives in battle. Included are the 2,000-plus lives lost in Iraq in the past three years and the million-plus who were killed since the beginning of the American Revolution.

It is a day of no ideology. It is not to commemorate a war that most Americans now think was a mistake, but to honor those who gave their lives for their country.

Gen. John Logan, head of a veterans organization called the Grand Army of the Republic, declared May 30, 1868, to be Decoration Day, a day to honor the dead on both sides of the Civil War by decorating their graves with flowers and flags. In later years, children were given poppies to decorate the graves, and poppies sold elsewhere were given to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The South ignored Logan's call and continued to observe its own day to honor the war dead. Some southern states continue to observe the holiday on May 10, the 1863 date of Stonewall Jackson's death and the date two years later of Confederate President Jefferson Davis' capture.

Memorial Day was not declared an official holiday until 1967, four years before the Vietnam War would become as unpopular as the conflict in Iraq is now; six of 10 Americans think the Iraq war is a mistake. Then as now, the day is not to show support for the war but to honor the fallen warriors.

In 1971, Congress declared it to fall on the last Monday in May, creating, along with Presidents Day, Veterans Day and Columbus Day, a three-day weekend that has threatened to undermine its reference. Polls indicate that barely one-fourth of Americans know what the holiday means.