It is now officially “Summer.” I know, the real beginning of summer does not happen until June 21 when the longest day of the year marks the change of the season. But Memorial Day marks the beginning of the Summer state of mind that will last all the way until Labor Day marks its conclusion. It is convenient to bracket the idea of summer with holidays. It gives us a feeling of place in the year to do so.
But Memorial Day is more than just a holiday to mark the beginning of vacation fun; it is also a time to remember. This tradition reaches all the way back to the Civil War era when a time of remembrance for the honored, fallen dead of that great conflict became a tradition. The Civil War is called the first “modern” war. The loss of life on both sides is one indicator of the changes in warfare that earned it this appellation. The entire country paid a great price in that conflict and the need to remember and recognize all those sacrifices, to mourn as a nation those losses, to reflect on the price of freedom came together as Decoration Day, the precursor of our modern holiday.
The same need remains. Our nationhood, our freedom still is defended by the lives of those who give the “… last full measure of devotion.”
It makes the pleasures of summer all the sweeter to remember the cost of its enjoyment. Those honored dead did not die in vane but that we all might live and enjoy the pleasures of an American Summer.
What are you planning for your Summer?
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