Lest we forget…
Monday is Memorial Day, the day Americans pause
to honor all the soldiers who died serving their country. A small-town
newspaper in Connecticut editorializes about the roots of that holiday -- the
way the best of newspapers in America should.
African-American Civil War Memorial, Washington DC
Monday is Memorial Day, the day Americans pause to honor all the soldiers who died serving their country. Kent will have a parade and the veterans from Kent will honor their fallen comrades, stopping at each of the cemeteries in town to pay homage.
The parade also stops at the monument in the center of Routes 7 and 341, where a student from Kent Center School will read the Gettysburg Address and another student will play taps on the trumpet, followed by a second student playing the echo. Not many people know why the parade stops at the monument and its connection with Memorial Day.
The 30-foot-tall gray granite obelisk in the center of the intersection’s proper name is “Soldiers Monument,” and was erected by the people of Kent in 1885 to commemorate the soldiers from Kent who fought in the Civil War and dedicated the following year. The monument has stood silently for 121 years, reminding passersby of the 150 men from Kent (three of whom are listed as “colored”) who left farms and businesses, wives and sweethearts, friends and family to fight for an idea.
They went off to war as young men, believing that the Union was worth saving and, perhaps, that no man should own another; that the principals laid down in the Constitution, just 72 years old in 1861, and the rights and liberties it guaranteed, were worth their sacrifice.
After observing the developing tradition in the former Confederate states of setting aside a day to bedeck the graves of the war dead, Maj. John Logan, head of the Union Army, established May 5 as Decoration Day, a time for the newly reunited nation to decorate veterans’ graves. Soon after, the date was changed to May 30, perhaps because flowers would then be in bloom all over the country.
After World War I the observation was expanded to honor all those who died in all of America’s wars and the name was changed to Memorial Day.
We honor those who fought and died for a united nation and against slavery. We also honor the ultimate sacrifice made by those Americans who fought against that standard.
Sadly, our land is now governed by those who would have opposed this war — using the same platitudes and slogans offered up by Confederate politicians. The war which claimed more American lives than any war in our nation’s history.
Posted: Sun - May 28, 2006 at 06:03 AM