Today is Memorial Day.
The origins of Memorial Day go back to the end of America’s Civil War, the deadliest war in American history. In that four-year conflict, more than 622,000 Americans died, more than died in World War I and World War II combined.
By the late 1860s, countless towns and cities across America launched springtime tributes at the graves of fallen soldiers from both sides of the Civil War.
These tributes were often community-wide events during which businesses closed, residents decorated the graves with flowers and flags and recited prayers to honor and remember the fallen.
The historical practice of placing flowers on the graves of the fallen led these events to be widely referred to as “Decoration Day.”
![](https://talbotspy.org/files/2024/05/June-Wandrey-in-uniform-1.jpg)
June Wandrey
The first national observance of what is now called Memorial Day occurred on May 30, 1868, in the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. The speaker was civil war veteran James A. Garfield, then a member of Congress and a future president.
In 1938, Congress officially approved Memorial Day as a federal holiday.
From 1868 until 1970 Memorial Day was observed annually on May 30. That date was selected because it was not connected to any battle or end date of any war.
Over the years, the scope of Memorial Day was expanded to honor and remember all the members of the United States military who died in World War I and World War II. Korean War, Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm, the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
In 1971, Congress decided Memorial Day should be observed annually on the last Monday in May.
Sadly, since then, Memorial Day has largely been replaced by far too many Americans from being a solemn day of remembrance to being the third day of a long holiday weekend.
It is characterized as the unofficial start of the summer vacation season, trips to the ocean, family picnics, and retailers holding sales events.
It is time to restore Memorial Day to what it was intended to be.
It is a time to reflect upon stories like the one below by June Wandrey Mann.
I discovered it two years ago and featured it then in a Spy Letter to the Editor.
It merits repeating.
June Mann served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II.
Between 1942 to 1946, she served in Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany.
In her post war book — Bedpan Commando — she wrote about her experiences. In it she wrote “Working in the shock wards, giving transfusions, was a rewarding, but sad experience. Many wounded soldiers’ faces still haunt my memory.”
Her recollection of one experience in August 1943 while serving in Sicily is especially heartbreaking.
“An eighteen-year-old boy is carried into the shock ward, and he looks up at me trustingly asking, ‘How am I doing, nurse?’ I just kiss his forehead and say, ‘You are doing just fine, soldier.’ He smiles sweetly and says, ‘I was just checking,’ Then he dies. We all cry in private. But not in front of the boys. Never in front of the boys.”
With all due respect to Nurse Mann who was a member of the “greatest generation,” I suggest that at least once on every Memorial Day weekend, it is not only OK, but very appropriate to cry … in private, in front of others, or do both.
We should do so in remembrance of all American military veterans who, as Abraham Lincoln observed in his Gettysburg Address, “gave the last full measure of devotion.”
David Reel is a Public affairs and public relations consultant who lives in Easton.
Mickey Terrone says
Mr. Reel. Good article. I’d add that many Americans confuse Memorial Day with Veterans Day, the former commemorating those who gave their lives for this country and the latter for Americans who served in the military in some capacity after the end of WWI. Throw in the 4th of July fireworks, D-Day June 6th and other military milestones and one can begin to see how the true meaning of Memorial Day can start to get lost in Americans’ summer plans for fun in the sun.
I also agree that Memorial Day Weekend has become more about barbecues, parties, weddings and the Indianapolis 500, among may other sporting events.
On the other hand, Sunday’s church service included prayers commemorating our fallen heroes and a stirring rendition of the Battle Hymm of the Republic by our wonderful soprano soloist. Monday’s memorial ceremony at our town park included several residents’ moving comments and experiences. Certain TV stations played patriotic war movies. The MPT Memorial Day Show fromthe US Capitol was dramatic and compelling. I watched several houurs of “Band of Brothers”.
The Star Democrat published a story about the local Talbot County cemetery in Unionville that maintains the graves of 18 US Colored Troops from Talbot County in the Civil War. Their service was commemorated by a group of uniformed Union soldier reenactors. Some of their descendants attended the event. The Richland Cemetery on Bay Street contains the graves of numerous more USCT from the Civil War era among the more than 700 black men from this county who volunteered to fight for their freedom, equal rights and the abolition of slavery.
The story of Unionville is exceptional in that it is one of the very few instances where USCT veterans had an opportunity to own land and live truly independently. Yet that story tends to mask the reality of share cropping and tenant farming to which most returning black troops were subjected. Despite their sacrifices, USCT veterans were subjected to the ever tightening Jim Crow Laws that precluded blacks from equality in public education, owning land, owning businesses and competing in the marketplace for over a century.
That history has largely been swept under the rug. The 82 Confederate soldiers had their Talbot Boys statue erected commemorating their voluntary efforts to force Maryland out of the Union and thus establish a permanent slavery-based constitution. The 400+ white Union veterans who returned had no special dedication to black freedom or equal rights, either. They wanted no part of 150,000 free blacks in Maryland.
Thus, for over a century after Appomattox, the “freedom” for which USCT sacrificed was light years from the equality enjoyed even by former Confederate Marylanders who fought to keep them in slave status in an erstwhile Confederate nation.
I certainly agree that Memorial Day ought to receive more focus to reinforce the depth of their ultimate sacrifice, and especially for Americans to understand and appreciate the freedom constitutional freedom that so many died to preserve for us. Perhaps if more of us truly understood that sacrifice virtually none among us would ever begin to consider voluntarily surrendering the freedom that our democratic republic’s constitution provides.
Turning our backs on democracy by handing authoritarian power to a dictator would betray every patriot who ever suffered or died to preserve our one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.
Darrell Parsons says
Thank you for this!