Honor our war dead.
Wake Forest’s Memorial Day ceremony will take place Monday, May 25, beginning at 11 a.m. at the Wake Forest Veterans’ Memorial near the Heritage Golf Club off Rogers Road.
The ceremony will be conducted by members of the Walter E. Cole Post 187 American Legion and will include statements from various veteran and civic groups.
Brian Pate will provide the music. At the close of the ceremony, Taps will be played and a wreath will be laid.
Post Commander Rich Heroux said that any veterans who need transportation to the ceremony should call him, 494-2707, or Hank Pierwola, 556-3619.
Memorial Day has been observed since 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, when Union veterans – the Grand Army of the Republic – established Decoration Day on May 30 as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. The date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, Commander in Chief, Grand Army of the Republic, ordered his posts to decorate graves “with the choicest flowers of springtime.” He urged: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance.” The first large observance was held at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.
In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “Birthplace” of Memorial Day. There, a ceremony on May 5, 1866, honored local veterans who fought in the Civil War. Businesses closed and residents flew flags at half-staff. Supporters of Waterloo’s claim say earlier observances in other places were either informal, not community –wide events. By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. It was not until World War I that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was placed on the last Monday in May.
The origin of special services to honor those who die in war is well founded in ancient times. The Athenian leader Pericles offered a tribute to the fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War over 24 centuries ago that could be applied to the 1.1 million Americans who have died in the nation’s wars: “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.”
Then as now small American flags are placed on each grave – a tradition followed at many National cemeteries.
Wake Forest veterans will meet on Saturday May 23, at the Hudson-MacMillan Hall, home of American Legion Post 187, 225 E. Holding Ave., at 8 a.m. to secure American flags and proceed to the local cemeteries where they will decorate each grave identified as belonging to a person who served his country.
(Post Commander Rich Heroux provided the information about Decoration-Memorial Day and the quote from Pericles.)