Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer but it is so much more than grilling and a party! This is a day where we take pause to remember the men and women that gave their lives so that we can enjoy the freedom we have here in the United States of America. These soldiers believed that we created a country where all people could be free to follow their individual beliefs without fear and have endless opportunities and it was worth fighting to keep.
We sometimes lose sight of what makes America great because we have had the privilege of living this life for so long that we take it for granted. Sometimes it takes a person from outside of America, whose dream it was to experience our way of life, to remind and inspire us again about what makes America great! Here is an article that will do just that ~ 10 Great Things About America.
On Memorial Day the flag is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon. It is then raised to full-staff for the remainder of the day.
The half-staff position remembers the more than one million men and women who gave their lives in service of their country. At noon their memory is raised by the living, who resolve not to let their sacrifice be in vain, but to rise up in their stead and continue the fight for liberty and justice for all.
The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America have a tradition of placing flags on the grave sites at cemeteries all over the country to honor our military every year. Beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye’s Heights (the Luminaria Program)
To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Moment of Remembrance” resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”
While you are grilling with family and friends and enjoying our great country, its foods and traditions, remember to take a moment in gratitude for all of those that fought for our continued freedom and good fortune. Life in America is amazingly good!
