Happy Memorial Day

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’s, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe go,
Rest of their bones, and souls’ delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppies, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroke; why swell’s thou then?
One short sleep past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
  - John Donne

Today, a crowd of about 5,000 visitors will gather in Arlington National Cemetery to pay their respects to the soldiers and other enlisted personnel who are buried here. Like Memorial Day itself, the origin of Arlington Cemetery dates back to the Civil War. A tragic side effect of the war was that existing graveyards were filling too fast and political offensive to the Confederates specifically Robert E. Lee. Today, Arlington is probably the best known of our nation’s 147 national cemeteries.
Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer, barbeque, vacation season.

EARLY OBSERVANCES OF MEMORIAL DAY
The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.
By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
It is unclear where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, (not Waterloo – Napoleon’s defeat) the official birthplace of Memorial Day.
Waterloo—which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.

HISTORY OF MEMORIAL DAY
Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars.
For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. But in 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees; the change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.

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