AT;
Tomorrow, the US officially recognizes Memorial Day. But the origin of a day to remember our fallen heroes was originally set aside as May 30, and the story of the man largely believed responsible for starting the tradition is a remarkable testament to the healing power of remembrance.
Nine years ago, I penned a tribute to former Union General John Logan, a pro-war Democrat, whose leadership of the veterans group Grand Army of the Republic set the stage for his passionate advocay of formally remembering the fallen during the Civil War.
Popular with the men under his command, Logan was a rarity – a commander the men could trust. They sensed his concern for their welfare as Logan made it a habit of visiting the company mess to taste the food himself. If he found it inadequate, he’d dress down the company commander and order him to fix the situation. Usually it was something simple like changing cooks or cleaning the cooking pots once and a while. In addition, Logan made sure the men under his command were properly supplied with shoes, blankets, and other necessities that kept the men comfortable during winter months. more
Let’s just call it a three day weekend…by Congress… and call it even?
“The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.”
This is not the only American holy day THEY RUINED.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Monday_Holiday_Act
Nothing is sacred to these bastards.
@ghost: They would have done it to Independence Day too, except that whole 4th of July thing.
A holiday (“holy” day) can signify nothing in our nihilistic, atheistic, secular time, now can it? Another excuse to get drunk (as if I need any) and grill up some dogs.
izlamo delenda est …
Speaking of grilling, Why did the cannibal join the Police force? He wanted to grill suspects.
Ole Miss site recalls the origins of Memorial Day as started by some women from Michigan in 1862
http://www.civilwarcenter.olemiss.edu/memorial_day.shtml
From an 1884 publication:
It was becoming, after such a record, that Mrs. Evans should have a formal recognition by the Grand Army. This was given her by Crocker Post, No. 12, Des Moines, February, 1873, the same recognition being extended to Miss Ella May, now the only survivor of the four, a few months later.
Pulled off of another site..
It’s late, but worth it.
* * *
“Sergeant David K. Cooper was mortally wounded by small arms fire while on dismounted patrol in Qadasiyah, Iraq. He died of these wounds in Baghdad on 27 August, 2008.
On Sunday, 7 September 2008, Sergeant Cooper was laid to rest in Jellico, Tennessee, following funeral services in nearby Williamsburg, Kentucky. The Patriot Guard attended the services and provided escort from the funeral home to the cemetery at the family’s request.
I am not a regular member of the Patriot Guard. I am a resident of Williamsburg, however, and asked permission from the Ride Captain to stand with the Guard and to ride escort, both of which were granted. We arrived at the funeral home shortly after noon and established a flag line (riders holding 3 x 5 American flags on staves) on the perimeter of the funeral home parking lot, facing the area reserved for the threatened protest by the Westboro Church cultists. I wasn’t at the airport when Sergeant Cooper’s casket arrived on Thursday, but I am told that four of these horrible people did show up there.
There was little traffic in downtown Williamsburg on a Sunday afternoon; the churchgoers had already headed home by the time we deployed, and most folks were about getting their Sunday dinners. We stood vigil until the funeral party had arrived and the service got under way, shortly after 2:00 p.m. It was very hot and muggy, very uncomfortable. Keep that in mind; it will become apparent why I tell you this.
Once the service finished and we had paid our respects to Sergeant Cooper and his family, we formed another flag line around the rear of the funeral home and the hearse. This is done in case there are any protestors who want to disrupt the ceremony or hurl curses at the family of the deceased. It is the Patriot Guards’ desire to interpose themselves between the family and those who have no respect for the dead, that instead of seeing hatred and vitriol, they will see respectful flag-bearers. We were fortunate that no incidents occurred during the service. With this complete, we stowed flags and mounted up to escort Sergeant Cooper to the cemetery in Jellico, some fifteen miles away, right about 3:30 p.m.
We couldn’t see Main Street from where we staged the bikes or from either of the flag lines. As we turned on to Main I felt a surge of anger.
Williamsburg, like a lot of small towns, holds a Fall Festival—here it is called “Old Fashioned Trade Days.” They close off Main Street, put up a lot of canopied booths and display their quilts and pickles, raffle off a shotgun or two, and fill up on carnival food. Trade Days began on 4 September and ran through Sunday. When we turned on to Main, there were the canopies, there were the people. I thought to myself, “Aw dammit! Can’t these people show some respect?!”
And then I saw that they weren’t looking at quilts or buying Polish sausages. They lined the streets four and five deep, almost all of them holding American flags or signs expressing their gratitude to Sergeant Cooper or their condolences for his family. There was no festival atmosphere in the crowd, no jaunty waving of flags, no rah-rah momentary patriotism.
This was a community bidding farewell to one of their own sons.
We rode on through downtown and crossed the tracks and climbed the hill that runs parallel to the University of the Cumberlands campus. The crowd had grown thinner as we got close to the tracks, but only because there aren’t many good places to stand right there. As we approached campus the numbers picked back up again, students and townies standing together to honor a fallen soldier.
There were no student protestors.
We rode between packed sidewalks up to the traffic light by the high school, turned left and proceeded to link up to Kentucky Highway 92. The crowd thinned out at this point; only the occasional house owner stood in his yard or on his porch as we passed. We turned on to Highway 92, then on to US Highway 25W, the old main road from Williamsburg to Jellico.
Another huge crowd of mourners greeted us as we reached this corner, packed into the parking lot of the Dollar General Store and the Save-a-Lot grocery and the car dealership. A ladder truck (from the nearby town of Corbin, I think) was parked there, ladder extended and flying a flag the size of a pickup truck. We rode between packed crowds for the better part of a mile before getting out of Williamsburg.
But at each little community between Williamsburg and Jellico there was another solemn crowd. Each volunteer fire department we passed had their engine run out, their flag at half mast, and their volunteers turned out and rendering honors as we passed. Every little crossroads had a knot of mourners standing vigil. In some places it was a single individual or single family, solemnly holding a flag and standing to honor Sergeant Cooper.
As we crossed into Tennessee we ran into packed sidewalks again, thousands of people lined up to pay their respects as the hearse passed. We escorted the graveside party through town and up to the high and lonesome cemetery where, with a guard of honor from the Whitley County Junior ROTC program, a funeral detail of Army Regulars, and full military ceremony, Sergeant David K. Cooper was returned to the native soil from which he had sprung 25 years earlier.
I was honored to be allowed to pay my respects and stand vigil over this young man. I was touched by the quiet dignity with which his family endured the services and laid their son and brother to rest. But my heart was both broken and mended by the public display of respect and shared grief that attended Sergeant Cooper’s funeral.
It was hot Sunday. It was muggy in the way that only the American Southeast can produce. The service itself ran long at the funeral home. These people who lined the streets and the highway stood in that heat for a couple of hours, all for the brief moment in which they could pay their respect to the family as the funeral procession passed by.
And there were thousands of them. Williamsburg is a town of perhaps 1,500 people. Jellico is about the same size. Yet there were literally thousands of people turned out to honor this young man.
And they were sincere. David K. Cooper was not a Medal of Honor winner, nor a distinguished general with decades in uniform, nor a veteran who had returned to his home town and spent years in public service.
He wasn’t a celebrity.
He was just one of us.
Just. One. Of. Us.
And so we honored his passing. Even if we had never met him in life, we wept the tears as if we were laying our own blood and our own bone to rest. We stood in solemn review as he passed by. We felt the grief in a young life ended, but that grief was tempered with the fierce pride in a young life not wasted.
To those who think America has lost its way, you should have been there; you would have seen the soul of a people reaching out to hold those who grieve.
To those who think America has lost its heart, you should have been there; you would have seen the beating heart of the nation pulsing deep and true.
* * *
I thought about trying to make some political points here, to cast a few aspersions, to wag a few fingers at people and groups that I happen to oppose in the body politic. But as I typed the final two sentences it struck me that should I do so, I would be no better than they. Rest in Peace, Sergeant Cooper.
* * *
And rest in peace all those who answered the call of country, to place themselves between their beloved home and the war’s desolation. Raise a glass today in salute.”
Amen…..
From the peoples cube.
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/memorial-day-t20139.html