Memorial Day started out as
Decoration Day, a day to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. On May 30, 1868, there was a memorial
ceremony held at Arlington National Cemetery, which was located in Confederate
General Robert E. Lee's plantation, and presided over by President Ulysses S.
Grant, himself a Union man. The main speaker that day was a war hero by the name of James Garfield, who later became president, and whose only crowning achievement in office was to be shot by a disappointed office-seeker. Well, that fact plus the fact that he gave a long-winded speech that mainly complained about long-winded speeches, and he talked for something like three straight days before his voice gave out.
Here is the opening sequence:
"I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung."
Then he talked and he talked and he talked and he talked for another ninety or so minutes.
Let me take a lesson from Garfield but, unlike James himself, actually heed the advice. There are no words except "Thank you" to our current service members and veterans, and "Rest in peace" to those we memorialize on this day.
Perhaps their music can never be sung, but neither will it be forgotten.
