Today is Memorial Day – rather it is the result of the 1967 legislation turning Memorial Day into a 3-day holiday. May 30th – the true Memorial Day, was the day set aside for 100 years to honor this country’s war dead. It was the day that our Civil War forebears expected that we would not allow to fall into disuse. As stated in last years Memorial Day post, what was to them “…an expression of fresh love and sorrow” should be …”an acknowledgment of an incalculable debt” for us.
I was reading a newspaper account of the Decoration Day parade held in Westport, CT (home to a great portion of the 17th’s Company E) on May 30, 1920. Noteworthy in the description of the parade is the lack of pomp and circumstance. It was, instead, a march from the town center to the cemeteries in town. Civil War veterans rode in cars, veterans of the Spanish-American War and the Great War marched alongside more cars loaded with flowers to decorate the graves of fallen comrades. Once that task was completed the parade disbanded. They were accompanied by a small delegation of Red Cross women. Equally noteworthy – this was the first public parade in many years in town. Previous to this parade, for many years, it was a private journey undertaken to honor the memories of those who had gone before by those who had yet to join them.
I’ve marched in parades on Memorial Day for most of my life now – and even in my lifetime I’ve seen changes occur. The day has become more a time for spectators to watch their kids ball teams, school groups, radio stations and a whole lot more than it is to remember the sacrifices made by more than a million men and women since our country was born. I always hope that the people who line the parade route remember what Memorial Day means – the Memorial Day before Congress turned it into one more 3-day weekend.