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Monday, July 14, 2025 |
Memorial Day 2002 (serious, not humor)   
Date: Sent Monday, May 27, 2002
Category: None | Rating: 3.54/5 (68 votes)
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/* We at GCFL can aways count on Tom to provide a serious, but important commentary on Memorial Day. Tom's mailing list, called (interesting enough)
Good Clean Fun, is one of the few that GCFL is willing to endorse. It is with great honor and respect that we quote his mailing for Memorial Day.
Thanx to Tom and all vets that have paid the price for our freedom in America. */
"This wasn't sent to me by another person or list, nor was it found posted elsewhere. It's just a few thoughts about a holiday which is special to me.
It's one of those few times when I share something serious instead of humorous." - Thomas S. Ellsworth, owner of the Good Clean Fun mailing list.
Memorial Day is on the last Monday in May and honors those men and women who lost their lives serving their country. What we celebrate as Memorial Day
today, began at the end of the Civil War. Family members of the many soldiers slain in battle would visit the grave sites of their fallen relatives or
friends and decorate the graves with flowers.
On May 5, 1868, General John Logan proclaimed this day a holiday through his General Order No. 11. The day was entitled Decoration Day and was first
observed on May 30, 1868. The northern states celebrated this day every year, but the southern states celebrated a day similar to this on a different
day until sometime after World War I.
In 1882, the name Decoration day was changed to Memorial Day, and in 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday to be held on the last Monday
of May every year. Over the years it has come to serve as a day to remember all U.S. men and women killed or missing in action in all wars.
I am truly grateful for the freedoms which we enjoy today. Too often, we take these gifts for granted, little realizing the sacrifice which was
involved in ensuring that these freedoms continue to be a part of all of our lives. Be honest, how many of us think of Memorial Day as just another
chance for a three-day weekend? A chance to go the lakes or beaches or mountains? A trip to Disneyland or Six Flags or some other amusement park?
If you are here in the United States, please remember to display your flag, not just for the day but for the whole weekend. Let's not forget the real
reason for having this holiday. The quote below says it all. Please take the time to read it.
Take care everyone.
Tom
(USN 65-69)
"It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these
soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when
they died, they gave up two lives -- the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be
husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for their county, for us. All we
can do is remember."
-- Ronald Wilson Reagan, Remarks at Veteran's Day ceremony, Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Virginia, November 11, 1985
Received from Good Clean Fun (http://www.slonet.org/~tellswor/).
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