New Day Cafe: Memorial Day Observance

All are welcome to join the fun, the silliness, the conversations. If you don’t know...just ask! Some things really do require a bit of explanation.

There will be a few surprises along the way, all good ones, we hope.

We are here to keep building the Daily Kos Community.

We post Mon-Sun at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.

Pie fights will be met with outrageous ridicule and insults. Trolls will be incinerated and served at the next group BBQ.  As briquettes.

Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. ✂

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.   www.history.com/...

But it wasn’t until a remarkable discovery in a dusty Harvard University archive the late 1990s that historians learned about a Memorial Day commemoration organized by a group of freed black slaves less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865. ✂

“There was a file labeled ‘First Decoration Day,’” remembers Blight, still amazed at his good fortune. “And inside on a piece of cardboard was a narrative handwritten by an old veteran, plus a date referencing an article in The New York Tribune. That narrative told the essence of the story that I ended up telling in my book, of this march on the race track in 1865.”

If the news reports are accurate, the 1865 gathering at the Charleston race track would be the earliest Memorial Day commemoration on record. 

www.history.com/...

George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington and adopted son of George Washington, acquired the land that now is Arlington National Cemetery in 1802, and began construction of Arlington House, which was ultimately named after the village of Arlington, Gloucestershire, England, where his family was originally from. The estate passed to Custis's daughter, Mary Anna, who had married United States Army officer Robert E. Lee. Custis's will gave a "life inheritance" to Mary Lee, allowing her to live at and run Arlington Estate for the rest of her life but not enabling her to sell any portion of it.^[4] Upon her death, the Arlington estate passed to her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.   ^✂

At the outbreak of the Civil War, most military personnel who died in battle near Washington, D.C., were buried at the United States Soldiers' Cemetery in Washington, D.C., or Alexandria Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia, but by late 1863 both were nearly full.^[12] On July 16, 1862, Congress passed legislation authorizing the U.S. federal government to purchase land for national cemeteries for military dead, and put the U.S. Army Quartermaster General in charge of this program.^[12] In May 1864, Union forces suffered large numbers of dead in the Battle of the Wilderness. Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs ordered that an examination of eligible sites be made for the establishment for a large new national military cemetery. Within weeks, his staff reported that Arlington Estate was the most suitable property in the area.^[12] The property was high and free from floods (which might unearth graves), it had a view of the District of Columbia, and it was aesthetically pleasing. It was also the home of the leader of the armed forces of the Confederate States of America, and denying Robert E. Lee use of his home after the war was a valuable political consideration.^[13] The first military burial at Arlington, for William Henry Christman, was made on May 13, 1864,^[14] close to what is now the northeast gate in Section 27.^[15] However, Meigs did not formally authorize establishment of burials until June 15, 1864.^[16] Arlington did not desegregate its burial practices until President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948.^[17]  ✂

President Herbert Hoover conducted the first national Memorial Day ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery, on May 30, 1929.  en.wikipedia.org/...

When I was a young girl my family stopped at Arlington Nat’l Cemetery during a cross country trip.  The only thing I remember of that place was paying our respects at JFK’s grave (less than three years after his death.)  

On May 15, 1920, the marble colonnades of the amphitheater were dedicated. ✂

In lieu of public events to mark the amphitheater's centennial, the cemetery prepared an online exhibit available on its website.

In the early 1970s my family often vacationed in San Diego for sailing and playing in the ocean.  One place we stayed at a few times was located in the Pt. Loma area, which is steeped in WWII history, such as streets and landmarks named for Adm. Chester Nimitz.  Several years later my BIL was stationed at the San Diego Naval base. 

RNC was established in 1976 through the transfer of 740 acres (300 ha) from March Air Force Base, a section that during World War II was called Camp Haan.^[2] The site was selected in 1976 to provide full burial options for Southern California veterans and their families by President Ford’s Commission for National Cemeteries and Monuments. An additional 181 acres (73 ha) was transferred by the U.S. Air Force in 2003.

With 15 Medal of Honor recipients in attendance and the Marine Corps’ greatest fighter ace Joe Foss as featured speaker, RNC was dedicated and opened for burials Veterans Day, November 11, 1978. RNC's first burial was Army Staff Sgt. Ysmael Villegas, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery at the cost of his own life at Villa Verde Trail on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, March 20, 1945. Following the war he was buried at Olivewood Cemetery in Riverside.^[3] Prior to the opening of RNC, the Veterans Administration asked the Villegas family if he could be honored by re-burial in the new National Cemetery. 

That is some interesting history to discover, as my family lived somewhat adjacent to Olivewood Cemetery when I was a kid. RNC was not dedicated until I was in college and no longer living in Riverside. 

The Memorial Wall is made up of two 246-foot-9-inch (75.21 m) long black granite walls, polished to a high finish, and etched with the names of the servicemen being honored in 140 panels of horizontal rows with regular typeface and spacing.^[2][3] The walls are sunken into the ground, with the earth behind them. At the highest tip (the apex where they meet), they are 10.1 feet (3.1 m) high, and they taper to a height of 8 inches (200 mm) at their extremities. Symbolically, this is described as a "wound that is closed and healing" and exemplifies the Land art movement of the 1960s which produced sculptures that sought to reconnect with the natural environment.^[4] The stone for the 144 panels was quarried in Bangalore, India. ✂

The wall originally listed 57,939 names when it was dedicated in 1982;^[5] however other names have since been added and as of May 2018 there were 58,320 names, including eight women. The number of names on the wall is different than the official number of U.S. Vietnam War deaths, which is 58,220 as of May 2018.^[6] The names inscribed are not a complete list of those who are eligible for inclusion as some names were omitted at the request of families.

During its relatively short duration from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, 36,574 Americans died in hostile actions in the Korean War theater. Of these, 8,200 are listed as missing in action or lost or buried at sea. In addition, 103,284 were wounded during the conflict.  www.koreanwarvetsmemorial.org/...