Memorial Day should be Remembrance Day every day

By Gordon Garnos

AT ISSUE: Memorial Day May 26, 2008, is now history, just like all the other Memorial Days down through this great nation's vita since 1868 when General John Alexander Logan ordered May 30 to be an official day for decorating the graves of those killed in the Civil War. Then it was called Decoration Day and at some point over the years renamed Memorial Day. Most states adopted it as an official holiday. Most states changed it to the last Monday in May, starting in 1971, to follow a Federal schedule for holidays. But all of those Memorial Days were so much more than holidays, including the one last Monday. They are days of observance and remembrance.

WAS LAST MONDAY just another day for you? Memorial Day is a day, I believe, is under appreciated and under celebrated.

When I was growing up, on every Memorial Day, my parents would have previously bought some plastic flowers and, perhaps, some real ones in Chamberlain or Pierre and then head for the cemetery where both sides of my family are buried. We'd plant the flowers in memory of them. Then back to our apartment above our bakery to relax. There may have been a rare picnic and softball game with friends near the White River bridge south of town.

More than likely there was a Memorial Day program that we must have attended that day as well, but that part of the day escapes me. I'm sure there were speeches and, maybe parades in my home town on that day. For sure, there was no taking advantage of the "Great Memorial Day Sales," that we know of today, no working in the bake shop, these ignored the purpose of the day, which was to remember those who died in the many wars that our nation has fought.

UNFORTUNATELY, these days, Memorial Day, along with other holidays, is used for big sales and commercialism, the meaning behind this holiday is being lost, purposely ignored, or just plain forgotten. Do they do not care, or if they even know, about why there is something called Memorial Day?

Viewing speeches and ceremonies during the Memorial Days of my youth obviously didn't sink in very much. Nothing like they did and do since I am a veteran, like my brother and two of my uncles, Otto and Dick, and several cousins.

There were the ceremonies of several yesterdays, a quick look at Google, brought up dozens of them. Newspaper accounts of them made great reading:

"Tens of thousands of Americans flocked to monuments, cemeteries and parades to honor the dead..." "The President laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington..." "The names of 520 Confederate soldiers were recognized for the first time today with a granite marker..."

"FEDERAL AND STATE lawmakers held the first Memorial Day service at Tahoma National Cemetery, the newest in the nation..." "Boy and Girl Scouts decorated every grave in the cemetery with an American flag..." "A Navy band played at the Los Angeles National Cemetery as military personnel passed out snapdragons and lilies..." and "In Texas, crowds were smaller at lakes and state parks, apparently because of the smoke still hanging over the state from Mexican wildfires. Some people chose to go to the movies instead, and showings of 'Godzilla' were sold out in Dallas..."

Nor can we pass over the speeches, hundreds of them. No. Thousands, all the way from that first one by General Logan in 1868 to what was said last Monday across this great nation of ours. But none can compare to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. No. This wasn't a Memorial Day speech as it was given by our President in November 1863, five years before that first Declaration Day address. But Lincoln's speech, written on the back of an envelope, has been restated in vast numbers of those Memorial Day speeches since then.

"Four score and seven years ago..." How many times have we heard or read this?

A PART OF THAT read, "But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate... we cannot consecrate... we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it..." A little further down Lincoln wrote, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." "Will little note, nor long remember..." Haunting. Will last Monday's Memorial Day speech have little note and not be long remembered? Or, didn't you even hear it?.....

Gordon Garnos was long-time editor of the Watertown Public Opinion and recently retired after 39 years with that newspaper. Garnos, a lifelong resident of South Dakota except for his military service in the U.S. Air Force, was born and raised in Presho.