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Recovering a holiday

Somber backdrop for Memorial Day must not be forgotten

Rocky Mountain News

Published May 26, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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A soldier stands in the Fort Carson Chapel after a 2003 memorial service.

Photo by Hal Stoelzle / The Rocky/2003

A soldier stands in the Fort Carson Chapel after a 2003 memorial service.

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The price of going somewhere this Memorial Day weekend is up. Gasoline is closing in on $4 a gallon and a major airline wants to charge you $15 to check a bag. But then the cost of staying home for Memorial Day is up too. The ingredients of a backyard barbecue will set you back 6 percent more than last year.

Time to whine? Not if you've got your priorities straight. The price of gas, a flight or a set of juicy steaks is a mere distraction on this day, which was established not so that we could travel or celebrate but so that we could remember.

The one constant in Memorial Day is its purpose, which is remembering and honoring those who have died in our country's service. Doing so doesn't cost a thing.

There are many who feel the holiday has strayed from that purpose. Instead of an official day of remembrance and mourning, they say, it has become the semi-official kickoff to vacation season. And that is true despite the fact that this nation is five years into a war that is still killing and maiming American soldiers, including a steadily growing number from Colorado.

Memorial Day, it is believed, lost something vital in 1971 when Congress moved it to the last Monday in May from May 30, the day it was first observed in 1868 when Ulysses Grant attended a ceremony at Arlington National Ceremony, a presidential custom observed ever since.

The day was traditionally a subdued observance devoted to the cleaning and decorating of the graves of the Civil War dead, hence its original name, Decoration Day.

People who believe it should return to those origins have organized a petition drive to restore Memorial Day to May 30. They include Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a World War II veteran, who has faithfully introduced a bill to that effect in every new Congress since 1989.

Inouye and other supporters of this concept are probably beating a brick wall. The three-day weekend is now engraved in the American calendar - very likely for good.

But those who remain faithful to the meaning of Memorial Day are not asking a lot - indeed, they are asking what is rightfully due - when they suggest all of us should pause this weekend, and especially today, to honor and reflect on the over 43 million who have served in our military in a long distinguished line going back to the American Revolution - and to the more than 1 million who have died in that service.

Have a great Memorial Day and do thank those who brought it to you.

Comments

  • May 26, 2008

    7:34 a.m.

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    anarchist writes:

    Earl, agreed.

  • May 26, 2008

    7:43 a.m.

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    davehughes writes:

    Well, here in Old Colorado City - now the westside of Colorado Springs, some of us pause to remember the Civil War dead (the original meaning of Memorial Day) - six buried in Pioneer Park and others in the westside's very old Fairview Cemetery.

    Very few modern residents of El Paso County at the foot of Pikes Peak even know that volunteers from the original Colorado City and Denver City saved Colorado Territory for the Union in 1862.

    Yep, the Civil War was here as Jeff Davis tried to send 4,000 Texas confederates up the Rio Grande through New Mexico to capture the Colorado gold fields. But the hardy 1,200 strong '1st Colorado Volunteer Infantry Regiment' marched on foot 400 miles south through Colorado City that was the Territorial Capital at the time, and in a hard fought campaign at Glorieta Pass, New Mexico threw the Confederates all the way back to Texas. Now they come with money instead of guns. It was called the 'Little Gettysburg of the West'

    And I for one tip my hat to fellow West Pointer, first Territorial Governor William Gilpin, who saw the military threat early enough to raise the money on Federal promissary notes, to organize the 1st Colorado - for there were no Federal troops around. Had he not done that, Denver would have been occupied by the Confederacy.

    Now I suppose it would be impolite on this Memorial Day to mention that it was the Rocky Mountain News, miffed in 1862 because Republican Gilpin didn't award the printing contract to the RMN in 1861, instead to the 'Colorado Republican' paper, that badgered Gilpin unmercifully editorially (in part for its own conflict of interest) until President Lincoln had to remove him from office.

    So every year during our three day "Territorial Days' celebration in the Old Colorado City part of Colorado Springs - which wasn't even founded until after the Civil War was over, we remember, even if nobody else does. Colonel_Dave

  • May 26, 2008

    11:03 a.m.

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    FreeToChoose writes:

    I guess SASQUATCH failed to get the meaning of this piece... another shining example of the fact that no matter what holliday it is, some moron has to infuse partisanship into a day where citizenship, or just plain goodwill, should take precendence.

    In the spirit of the piece as it was written, may our American heroes rest in peace as we remember and honor their scarifice.

  • May 26, 2008

    12:23 p.m.

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    peterpi writes:

    I agree with most of the other commentators. This is a day to honor those who sacrificed so that we could have the freedoms we have. My parents both served during WWII. They came here, via separate paths, from Nazi Germany to escape oppression there. My dad received his American citizenship while serving with Patton's army in North Africa. In one of those coincidences that makes life interesting, on V-E Day, my dad was a lower-ranking commissioned officer with a unit of an American army stationed in my mom's birthplace. They both loved this country and the freedom and opportunity it provided. My partner and I might go out later and visit their graves. Last year on Memorial Day, we helped a friend of ours find his dad's, who also served in WWII, grave.
    Congress has indeed diluted the meaning of Memorial Day, but that doesn't mean that we individually can't observe it properly.

  • May 26, 2008

    12:57 p.m.

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    ollie writes:

    Thanks Earl. Good comment.

  • May 26, 2008

    3:38 p.m.

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    me2 writes:

    Thank you so much for the story about Colorado and the Civil War. That made my day. And I an going to do some research on it in the future.