Memorial Day

 We remember with sadness all those, and their families and loved ones, who sacrificed everything for our freedoms.

Commemorating Memorial Day

Remembering all the men and women who sacrificed their lives to protect our democracy, and all the families, the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, who lost loved ones.

Memorial Day

 Remembering and honoring all who lost their lives for our country.

Commemorating Memorial Day

Memorial Day above all is a time to honor the Americans who died while serving our country. But this year so many of us have lost loved ones due to the pandemic, either directly or indirectly. Please stop today and take the time to mourn the loss of every person who has perished over this past year.

Memorial Day

This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the end of World War II. 405,399 Americans died in that war.

     "Vale" From Carthage
           (Spring 1944)

by Peter Viereck, July 1947

I, now at Carthage.  He, shot dead at Rome
Shipmates last May.  “And what if one of us,”
I asked last May, in fun, in gentleness,
“Wears doom, like dungarees, and doesn’t know?
He laughed, "Not see Times Square again?"  The foam,
Feathering across that deck a year ago,
Swept those five words--like seeds--beyond the seas
       Into his future.  There they grew like trees,
       And as he passed them there next spring, they spread
       Across his road of fire their sudden shade.
Though he had always scraped his mess-kit pure
And polished piously his barracks floor,
Though all his buttons glowed like cloudless moons
To plead for him in G.I. orisons,
No furlough fluttered from the sky.  He will
Not see Times Square--he will not see--he will
Not see Times
                       change; at Carthage (while my friend,
Living those words at Rome, screamed in the end)
I saw an ancient Roman's tomb and read
"Vale" in stone.  Here two wars mix their dead:   
        Roman, my shipmate's dream walks hand in hand
        With yours tonight ("New York again" and "Rome"),
         Like widowed sisters bearing water home
         On tired heads through hot Tunisian sand

How to Participate in Taps Across America on Monday at 3 PM

Since parades and gatherings are cancelled this Memorial Day weekend, retired Air Force bugler Jari Villanueva and correspondent Steve Hartman are asking buglers and trumpet players across the country to stand on their porches this Memorial Day, and play the haunting music of “Taps” – and for the rest of us to soak in this 24-note reminder of what Memorial Day is all about. For information on how to participate, go to cbsnews.com/taps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4_uTsBzg4s

 

Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals;
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night – some are so young;
Some suffer so much – I recall the experience sweet and sad…

The Wound Dresser, Walt Whitman 1865

Memorial Day

"...gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime....let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation's gratitude,--the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan." --General John Logan, General Order No. 11, 5 May 1868

Memorial Day

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the United States entry into World War I, on April 6, 1917. Over 4,700,000 American servicemen and women went to war in Europe and over 116,000 died either in battle or from disease or other causes.

The British poet Wilfred Owen wrote this poem. He was killed in action on November 4, 1918. He was 25 years old.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Memorial Day

 "...gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime...let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation's gratitude,-- the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan."     

General John Logan, General Order No. 11, 5 May 1868

Memorial Day

"...gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime...let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation's gratitude,-- the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan."     

General John Logan, General Order No. 11, 5 May 1868

Memorial Day

"...gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime...let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation's gratitude,-- the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan."     

General John Logan, General Order No. 11, 5 May 1868