In the United States we have a few “secular-sacred” civic holidays. Memorial Day is one of them. Its origins, significance, and meaning have all become somewhat obscured – for instance, with Veteran’s Day – and homogenized in the commercialization of all holidays into justifications for department-store and used-car sales, a sorry situation. Ask people what “Memorial Day” is, today, and you are more likely to hear responses about the “beginning of summer” or sales or barbeques than honoring servicemen of the past.
When I was a boy, many people still called it Decoration Day. Its origins after the Civil War were among Black freedmen, celebrating their liberation and the nation’s fratricidal war to achieve it. Union veterans under the Grand Army of the Republic (an early American Legion of sorts) urged that it be a holiday for all veterans; in fact, for all Americans to remember war, honor peace, and commemorate fallen military personnel. People would pray, hold parades and solemn gatherings, and decorate graves. When I was a kid, moms would decorate baby carriages in red, white, and blue bunting, and join the parades,
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