How We Celebrate Memorial Day

This past Monday morning I attended the City of Highland Park’s at the Veterans Memorial Park, hosted by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Affairs and the North Shore Post for the Jewish War Veterans.

Given the timing of the event and the strong dedication our township had in celebrating it, I feel it is important to understand the origins of the event, and its impacts on the world today. Memorial Day’s origins began three years after the end of the Civil War, with the Grand Army of the Republic establishing Decoration Day -- a day to decorate the graves of veterans with flowers -- on May 30, a day where flowers would be growing across our country. Before then, many local observations took place across the country, which explains why many towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. However, the official birthplace of Memorial Day was declared to be Waterloo New York by President Andrew Johnson, for a ceremony on May 5, 1866.

After World War One, celebrations expanded to commemorate all Veterans. In 1971, Memorial Day became an official national holiday, placed on the last Monday of May.

The holiday’s current value, however, is not set entirely in its origins. For example, many political candidates have harnessed the spirit of patriotism that comes with the day. Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney released a statement on Monday:

As we observe Memorial Day, we owe thanks to the many Americans who have fought and died to defend our country. Those patriots who are on the battlefields in the past, some never to return, have left us a stronger country, a great nation that, whatever its divisions, shines as a beacon of liberty before the peoples of the world.

Also on Monday, possible Republican presidential candidate and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin visited Washington’s National Archives, Virginia’s Mount Vernon and Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg, home of the Gettysburg Address. She gave statements concerning her beliefs on America’s reformation.

President Barack Obama visited Arlington National Cemetery, a long-standing Presidential tradition. Many would argue that, in a wave of patriotism and celebration of our country’s and our military’s virtue, there is no better time for a candidate to show a connection to these values and the voters that hold them. However, it is important that we do not let Memorial Day become a blind celebration of patriotism and our country as a whole, aswe would then lose the very foundation of the event in the first place: the mourning of our veterans who died for what they believed in.

I feel that Memorial Day is interesting because of its particular basis in patriotism. While other holidays, mainly the Fourth of July, celebrate our country and offer a basis for patriotism that has served many of our presidential candidates well, Memorial Day is special because of its particular connection to our armed forces. This, I feel, gives it a more solemn and sacred establishment than the more commercial Independence Day. While on the Fourth of July we turn to flags and fireworks, with sales and cookouts, Memorial Day carries the respect of more concrete and complex values; the grief of losing our soldiers, the joy of those who return and the celebration of those who were willing to risk their lives for what they loved about this country, whatever those values were.

It is important, I feel, that we spend less time celebrating Memorial Day itself, and more time respecting the values behind it.