As the Memorial Day weekend approaches, most Americans view it as the unofficial beginning of summer, a time for gatherings and outdoor celebrations with loved ones.
Yet we must remember that beyond the barbecues and festivities, Memorial Day stands as our nation’s most solemn observance—a day dedicated to honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Originally observed on May 30 under the name Decoration Day, this tradition emerged in the years before the 20th century began. Northern states used the occasion to honor Union soldiers who died preserving the nation and ending slavery, by placing flowers and flags on graves throughout their communities.
This custom endures today across the country, with veterans groups and families continuing to decorate the graves of fallen service members with flags and flowers.
The 20th century brought successive wars that deepened the meaning of the Supreme Sacrifice. From the Spanish-American War in 1898 through World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, and conflicts in other distant locations known mainly to government officials, American lives have been lost on foreign battlefields.
While historians may debate the wisdom of policies that led to these conflicts, one fact remains indisputable: in every war, our young men and women have served with courage and patriotism, believing they acted in their nation’s interest.
Those of us who have never experienced war’s horrors can scarcely comprehend the sacrifices made by those in uniform—especially those who never returned home.
It is these courageous Americans, who gave “the last full measure,” that we recognize on Memorial Day. Without their sacrifice, neither this editorial would exist nor would you be reading these words.
As we celebrate this long weekend with family and friends, we should each pause to acknowledge those whose lives were given so that we might enjoy the freedoms that define America.
The words Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg in 1864 remain as relevant today:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.