Leave it to America to destroy everything it loves.
Was just reading up on memorial day. Did you know that it was originally a day to honor the fallen dead of the Civil War? Shortly after the Civil War’s end, a group of freed black slaves snuck into an area that was a Confederate prison camp where countless Union soldier’s bodies were buried in a mass grave. These freed slaves dug up the massive grave and re-dug individual graves for the Union soldiers who had one them their freedom. They then went out, picked flowers from the countryside and returned, decorating the graves and building a fence around the area with an entrance arch. What an amazing example of how to honor our fallen heroes.
Then commercialism came along and said, “lets make it a three day weekend,” which the government went along with in the late ’60’s. Then commercialism said, “lets have sales and donate money to the fallen soldier’s families.” That slowly turned into “let’s just have sales” which is where we stand today. We sell clothes, cars, shoes, and power tools, but in no way to do we honor the fallen. In no way to we memorialize what they’ve done, how they died. Most people don’t think of memorial day as anything more than a day off of work. We wave the flag on July 4th but do nothing to pay respect to the people that allowed that flag to be waved. We speak against an unjust war but fail even look at the names of the men who’ve lost their lives in this war that we hate. 20 seconds, that’s all it takes (http://tinyurl.com/oubo5q), to say thanks. Make it a weekly tradition, and instead of thinking of memorial day as a day off, think of it as a day of gratitude, of mourning, a day to remember the heroes who didn’t need to know us to fight for us.
