This special day has become more holiday than sacred day

Today is as close to an old-fash- ioned Memorial Day as it gets. Yes, it’s on a Monday, just like every Memorial Day of the last 40 years, but this is one of those relatively rare years when the holiday comes by its date honestly.

Until Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill in 1968, Memorial Day was on May 30, regardless of the day of the week. It was a day set aside to honor the dead, especially those who fell in service to the nation. Tens of thousands of people in cities from coast to coast would line parade routes. Veterans groups were the honored participants, but there were high school bands, Scout troops, firetrucks and, bringing up the rear, children on their bicycles decorated with red, white and blue crepe paper and flags in special brackets that were sold in neighborhood candy shops and five-and-dime stores.

It is arguable that when Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which went into effect in 1971, it aided and abetted in the devaluation of what had been a unique American holiday. Memorial Day, Washington’s Birthday and Veterans Day were no longer tied to a date, they were defined by a new status, the Monday that was attached to the end of a three-day holiday weekend. Memorial Day became the last Monday of May. The Memorial Day weekend became the first long holiday weekend of the summer.

Coming at the tail end of the weekend, Memorial Day became more of an afterthought than a day dedicated to a higher purpose.

Gen. Logan’s spirit

There are still those who go out of their way today to honor our veterans in the spirit of Gen. John A. Logan’s order of May 5, 1868. General Orders 11 read that the 30th day of May, 1868, be “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 church-yard in the land. ...

“If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

“Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.”

To be sure, a number of local veteran organizations, civic groups and communities make the effort to mark Memorial Day in the spirit in which it was born. Listings of those events have run several times in The Vindicator, including Sunday’s and today’s papers. Everyone involved in making those events a success deserves credit for his and her efforts.

But on this day, it is difficult to not wonder how much more solemn the observance might be if the day had kept its original purpose rather than being redefined as the last day of the first three-day-weekend of the summer.

That’s something for those of us who have strayed to think about — if not this year, next year and the year after. Because, as some so painfully know, there are men and women who continue to risk life and limb in service to America’s freedom today. And if you sometimes feel that their sacrifices are not being adequately acknowledged, you are not alone.