Memorial Day History, Tradition, Honor: Remembering the Fallen

By John E. Carey
May 26, 2007

Created by Civil War widows to honor their dead, Memorial Day was first called Decoration Day. The day marked the annual “decoration” of graves with flowers.

Today, Memorial Day honors all war dead, and, as at Arlington National Cemetery, it has become customary to decorate the graves with a small American Flag instead of flowers. At Arlington, soldiers pay their respects to The Fallen and place flags on the graves.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on May 5th, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on May 30, 1868.

On Memorial Day, at Arlington National Cemetery, traditionally the President or Vice President lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The occasion is also marked in almost every State on the last Monday in May. Several southern states, however, have an additional, separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

The newest “tradition” perhaps of Memorial Day is the annual tribute to The Fallen in Washington DC provided by “Rolling Thunder.”

The major function of Rolling Thunder®, Inc. is to publicize POW-MIA issues: To educate the public that many American prisoners of war were left behind after all previous wars and to help correct the past and to protect future veterans from being left behind should they become prisoners of war-missing in action.


Rolling Thunder is  also committed to helping American veterans from all wars.

Rolling Thunder®, Inc. is a non-profit organization. Members donate their time because they believe in the issues they support.
(See: http://www.rollingthunder1.com/)

Here is General Logan’s official order:

General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.

In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, “of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.”

What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes?

Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders.

Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from his honor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.

Additional Reading:

Memorial Day Part I: Letters bring a war back to life

Memorial Day Part II: Battle of the Bulge

Brothers Served Valiantly in War

On War and Love: From the 1860s

CIA Pilot From French Era In Vietnam Laid To Rest

Helo Pilot Gets Medal of Honor for Rescue of 70; Flew 22 Missions in 14 Hours

Medal of Honor Recipients Gather at the Pentagon; Share Stories of War

Tribute to Admiral Joe Metcalf, “Warrior” and Alacrity Personified

9-11 memorial takes shape at Pentagon

Veterans’ Lifelong Mission To Keep Memories Alive
(Rolling Thunder is 20 Years Old)

UnAmerican ACLU: Aggression against military memorials

Honoring the Dead and Giving Thanks Started During Another War

This year’s Rolling Thunder: 100,000 Bikes:
Rolling Thunder honors The Lost, POWs and MIAs

For a video Memorial Day Tribute we recommend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQUFvdRdIG0

http://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/2008/12/catherine-mary-kate-hewitt.html

We remain acutely aware of the men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the war against terror.

Memorial Day Part II: Battle of the Bulge

By John E. Carey
First Published
December 30, 2006

Aging veterans of another war are this week recalling their battles, their sacrifices, their losses and their triumphs. This is the 62nd winter since the “Battle of the Bulge” in World War II.

In 1944 the combined allied armies of the European Theater, made up mostly of British and American troops under the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower, landed in Normandy, France on D-Day, June 6th. The armies assaulted the German defenders of “Fortress Europe.” Casualties on both sides were staggering. On D-Day alone, total Allied casualties were estimated at 10,000, including 2,500 dead.

After D-Day, the Allied armies plunged into the German defenders and fought their way across France. From June until December, 1944, the Allies advanced while the Germans retreated, all the while each side inflicting heavy casualties upon the foe.

On July 20, 1944, a senior German staff officer, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, planted a bomb at Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair” — his command post for the Eastern Front in Rastenburg, Prussia. Hitler survived.

In the purge that followed, along with many others, Germany’s hero of the North Africa campaign, the “Desert Fox,” Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, who also had commanded the German defenses in France and along the Atlantic Wall on D-Day, was implicated in the plot and eliminated by Hitler.

In December of that 1944, German ground forces were struggling but unbowed. Besieged by Russia in the east, Hitler elected to surge his forces westward in the face of the Allies in an attempt to retake the port of Antwerp. The Allies were assembled in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium and poised for the final lunge into Germany itself.

Because Adolph Hitler would not suffer a defeat while he still had combat ready troops, the world’s best tanks, and other military assets still ready for a fight, the “Battle of the Bulge” may have been inevitable.

Hitler’s forces began to ramp up their activity with probing attacks along the American lines as early as November 27, 1944. Even so, Hitler’s gambit which became known as the “Battle of the Bulge” took the allies totally by surprise.

Germany launched the assault on December 16, 1944. In the winter snows of Belgium, the Nazis used their Blitzkrieg tactics forged in battle all over Europe.

Germany’s Generals were under no illusions when they launched into what would become known as the “Battle of the Bulge.” They knew this assault may be the last gasp of a mighty army.

But the Germans, aided by dense cloud cover which prevented Allied air power from attacking them, attacked on the ground with speed and ferocity.

For Germany, this battle was an all or nothing affair. The Germans raced for Antwerp, led by an SS armored column under the command of SS Gruppenführer Joachim Peiper. Peiper’s had to capture fuel for his tanks as they attacked forward. Peiper took no prisoners, ordering the execution of hundreds of Americans captured by his column. He also massacred Belgian civilians in the town of Stavelot.

The fighting was fierce.

A participant at the Belgian town of Bastogne recorded the events this way: “We were not well equipped, having just gotten out of combat in Holland. We were particularly short of winter clothing and footwear….We became completely surrounded by Germans and our field hospital was overrun by a German attack. We had put the hospital in what would normally have been a safe place, but no place is safe when you are completely surrounded. At this time, we were not able to receive air resupply because the weather was absolutely frightful. It was very, very cold and snowy. Visibility was often measured in yards.”

The German commander demanded that the Americans surrender.

The American commander, acting Division Commander General Tony McAuliffe of the 101st Airborne, penned a one word reply to his German counterpart: “Nuts.”

The Americans prevailed. Colonel Edward Shames of the 506th Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne, wrote, “After 29 days of hell, we were relieved from the area around Bastogne and headed elsewhere to fight the remaining battles of World War II.”

Two days before Christmas the weather began to lift and Allied air power began to pound the Germans. Meanwhile, Patton’s Third Army made the largest and fastest redeployment from one enemy line to another in the history of the U.S. Army.

The day after Christmas, the siege of Bastogne was over – but the “Battle of the Bulge” and spin-off engagements would rage for almost one more month.

The Allies could not be certain that the Germans had been defeated in their plan until January 25, 1945. The “Battle of the Bulge” had raged for more than 40 days.

Today we remember and salute our fathers and grandfathers who fought so bravely to bring us our freedom and end World War II – especially those participants of the “Battle of the Bulge.”

Memorial Day Part I: Letters bring a war back to life

By Katie Watson
USAToday
Opinion
24 May 2007

As I see the flags out for Memorial Day, I am reminded of my grandfather, a World War II veteran who fought in the Pacific theatre.

He died before I was born, but I’ve gotten to know him this year by reading the letters that he sent home to his family during the war.

My grandfather, Roy Watson, never talked about his experience as anything unusual, but it is his refusal to make a special claim for himself that makes me admire him.

He was drafted into the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor as an optimistic 22-year-old excited to be away from home for the first time. He had grown up in the small town of Brookhaven, Miss.

In another lifetime, my grandfather would have been headed off to college. Instead, he got his education on the battlefields of the Pacific region. He spent two years training at Fort Ord in the desert of Central California, which he initially described as “the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’m going to have any hard work.” But, in time, he grew weary of the training and was hoping to be sent into battle. “This army ain’t nothing but a lotta crap. I’m ready to do some fighting now,” he wrote in March 1942.

My grandfather finally got his wish on April 29, 1943, when his 7th Infantry Division was set to reclaim Alaska’s Aleutian Islands from the Japanese. He went from lazing around in California to fighting the Japanese in one of the most brutal battles of the war. He did not tell his relatives many details about this battle, partly because he was not allowed to and also because he did not want to worry them.

Attu battle set standard

Later, my grandfather started weighing future battles against what had happened in the Aleutians, where close to 1,700 U.S. servicemen were killed or wounded, and almost the entire Japanese army of more than 2,000 men died. The four weeks of fighting on Attu, the westernmost of the Aleutian Islands, were some of the most fierce of the war. “This campaign hasn’t been so bad so far,” he wrote. “I still judge them by the Attu battle, and don’t believe any of them will ever equal that baby.”

After being sent to Hawaii to await his next assignment, my grandfather had a chance to think about the experiences he had gone through. He had lost the innocence and cheerfulness that filled his pre-battle letters. “Dear Pap: Just a line to let you know everything is still SNAFU,” he wrote. “Wish I were at home. Maybe it won’t be long. We will go out to the pit and catch every damn fish in the lake.”

My grandfather no longer went on and on about shooting contests in camp. For him, hitting the target no longer meant getting into town before the other men; it meant living longer than the enemy.

In February 1945, when my grandfather was in the Philippines, he received word that his older brother Sidney had been killed in the Battle of the Bulge on the European front. “Help mama and pap to bear it. I know how terrible it must be for all of you,” he wrote to his older sister, Bessie Watson. “Maybe you can make them believe that he died for something greater than ourselves. I cannot. I have seen so many of us die, that I can’t believe that there is any reason or justification for it.”

My grandfather became so despondent it was hard to recognize him from his letters. “You get so used to death,” he wrote. “You feel as if you can look at it without emotion, but when it’s somebody dear to you it hurts awfully.”

Much to the dismay of his family, my grandfather stopped writing for a few months after his brother died.

Weary of war

When he began writing again, the war in Europe was over, but he still saw no end in sight for himself. My grandfather joined the war to do his part for his country, but in his fourth year he felt finished, exhausted. By August 1945, when Japan had surrendered, he wanted to skip partaking in the occupation to come home. “We fight for 30 months and then they want us to occupy some damned place,” he wrote.

When my grandfather’s hometown paper, the Lincoln County Times (today called The Daily Leader), finally ran his brother’s obituary, they wrote: “A member of a large and esteemed local family, his loss to his devoted parents, brothers and sisters, is a tragedy, tempered only by the thought of the patriotic sacrifice which he made, and which they share.”

I do not think my grandfather would have found his brother’s death softened by his patriotic sacrifice. My grandfather believed America had fought a “good war,” but nothing could ease the fact he would never see his brother again.

My grandfather survived the war and came home in the fall of 1945. He returned to his prewar job at the local gas company and went on to marry and have two children, one of them my father.

Like those serving in

Iraq, my grandfather was simply a son and a brother, trying to make it through the war. He was scared and frustrated with his situation, but it is his courage and perseverance in the face of all of these doubts that make me admire him.This Memorial Day, I will think not only of the bravery it took for my grandfather to make it through the war. I will think of the men and women serving in our armed forces and will know that like him, they might be scared or frustrated. In the end, they too are brave and courageous for the sacrifice they are making for our country.Katie Watson is a 2007 graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.