May 23 2009
Well, gang, here we are, another Memorial Day weekend.
And while you can’t really love a war, the ones that we’re involved in right now, somehow don’t seem quite as bad as they did just a year ago.
Not that that makes it any easier on the troops, because it doesn’t. And speaking of the troops, we love and appreciate our service men and women now, more than we have since World War II. Maybe Korea.
Something good may come of this mess we’re in yet. Maybe the folks in uniform and the folks in civvies will wind up finding each other on the same page again.
Memorial Day was started after the Civil War. Originally, it was called Decoration Day. General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former soldiers and sailors, declared by proclamation that we decorate the graves of fallen of the civil war on May 30th 1868.
By the late 1800s it had become a national ritual across the country.
It was the thing to do.
Then came WWI, and in 1918 we wound up with Armistice Day to celebrate the end of The War to End All Wars, and to remember those that had lived through the war, as well as those that had perished.
Some where along the way, Armistice Day became Veterans Day, to honor our servicemen and women in all wars. And then in 1971 Congress finally made Memorial Day a national holiday. Banks closed and everything.
Which means that it took Congress only 103 years to follow the lead of the Average American Citizen and to make what they had been doing all along . . . Official.
Monday, take the time to think about those that have paid the ultimate price for our being here, living the way that we do.
It’s the American thing to do.

Till next week
Helga Biermeister
Secretary