Memorial Day Marks Generations of Courage, Sacrifice, and Service to America
Travis Bateman
Farmer Staff Writer
For over 250 years the United States of America and its military men and women have served, fought, bled, and died for this country and its causes.
Since May 5, 1868, first known as “Decoration Day” to honor those lost in the Civil War and then officially adopted to Memorial Day in 1967. The day of remembrance was then moved to the last Monday in May of 1971 and solidified as a federal holiday.
Memorial Day is a day for remembrance and to honor those lost in war while serving in our nation’s Armed Forces. And while it’s a day that makes for a long weekend where often times barbecues or other gatherings are held, it’s important to pause, no matter what the plans are, and to take direct recognition for the true purpose and reasoning behind such a day. The losses and sacrifices of so many to which their loss is also endured and carried daily by those left behind.
Most recently, conflicts in the Middle East reignited what it meant to see our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, off to a foreign land and not know if they would come home. Most did. Some did not. And every one of them was changed forever.
Technology has brought the first person view of combat home to our screens and offered a glimpse of what war was like when the War on Terror began in 2001. Others who stepped up to serve experienced it first hand in places called Afghanistan and Iraq. And still others before that knew places in Vietnam and Korea, Germany, France, and Japan.
For those that do not return home alive and for their loved ones stateside, it’s a ripple effect that comes from around the world. One that is slow to arrive but when it does, it hits with the force of a tidal wave and changes families and communities forever.
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