“They summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and virtue.”

- General James A. Garfield,
at the first national Memorial Day Observance, 1866.

We can’t even agree on Memorial Day.

When the holiday was officially introduced in 1866,¹ it was created as a way to honor Union soldiers in a way similar to observances that already existed in the former Confederate states. By 1868, it moved to a set date of May 30. And so it continued, until 1968’s Uniform Holidays Bill, 100 years later, which moved four holidays — Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Veterans Day — to specific Mondays in order to create convenient three-day weekends.

But some veterans groups do not appreciate the long weekends because they feel that it’s too easy to forget the sacrifices. In 2002, the Veterans of Foreign Wars took exception to the long weekends:

“Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.”

Since 1999, legislation has been introduced, and defeated, to move Memorial Day back to its traditional day of May 30th, so that Americans would have a more meaningful reminder of the day’s purpose.

Somehow, I think that no matter what date you insert the holiday, whether in the middle of the week or at the beginning or end of a weekend, there are always going to be those who take no interest in the day’s true meaning. To some, it is just a holiday; the reason for their day off isn’t remotely important to them, so long as they get their day.

At the very least, the long weekend gives those who genuinely do care about the day’s real meaning the opportunity to travel to local observances or to visit their ancestors’ final resting places. No matter how wrong it is to forget why Memorial Day was created, you cannot force people to celebrate with genuine interest if they just don’t have it.

More than 2,400 hundred Americans have died in the current war. Some of them believed genuinely in the work they gave their lives to complete. Others did not. But they all share the same tragic outcome, and they are all deserving of our respect…at least one day’s worth.

The photo above is from the Fredricksburg Battlefield cemetary, in which thousands of Union soldiers who died there are interred. I have also posted a photo of the Civil War Memorial built to honor Confederate soldiers at Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetary over at “Patrick’s Portfolio.”

¹ The first unofficial Memorial Day celebration is believed to have occurred in 1865, held in Charleston, South Carolina, by freed slaves who wanted to commemorate the Union soldiers who died there.