Memorial Day

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest

On this Field of the Grounded Arms,

Where foes no more molest,

Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,

And started to your feet

At the cannon's sudden roar,

Or the drum's redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death

No sound your slumber breaks;

Here is no fevered breath,

No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,

Untrampled lies the sod;

The shouts of battle cease,

It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!

The thoughts of men shall be

As sentinels to keep

Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green

We deck with fragrant flowers;

Yours has the suffering been,

The memory shall be ours. 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Decoration Day* 

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.**

- Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen 

Until 1967 known as "Decoration Day" and formerly celebrated on 30 May before "long-weekend" national holidays were introduced the next year, various Memorial Days were first observed after the Civil War in both the North and South, when the graves of the fallen were decorated with flowers and bunting. The first widespread use of the 30 May date took place in 1868 as an observance organized by the Union Army veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, and this custom gradually spread to the rest of the country and was later expanded to honor the dead of all the nation's wars. 

In a speech just six months before his own death, General George S. Patton, Jr. (1885-1945) noted,

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived." )

* N.B. Longfellow's "Decoration Day" is from his collection, In the Harbor (1882). 

** The fourth verse of (Robert) Laurence Binyon's "For the Fallen" (1914) - generally followed by the phrase, "Lest we forget" - is now part of virtually every war memorial service in Britain and her former colonies. 

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,
mors et fugacem persequitur virum.
nec parcit imbellis iuventae
poplitibus timidove tergo.

~ Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Carmina, III, ii, 13

(To die for the fatherland is a sweet and admirable thing.*
Death is at the heels even of the runaway, nor spares
the haunches and back of the coward and malingerer.)

A brief history of Memorial Day:



Related posts and links:

Here's How To Make An American Flag Out Of Bacon

10 Things to Remember About Memorial Day.

Monday links

Happy Memorial Day:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Historical images of Arlington National Cemetery.

When the worst problem large cities had to deal with was horse manure. Slightly related: When San Francisco’s Chinatown Was Quarantined for Plague.

Belgian monks resurrect 220-year-old beer after finding recipe.

Advice from 1896: how to Drive an Electric Car.

Because I've been watching a lot of old Gunsmoke episodes recently: How Dodge City Became The Ultimate Wild West.

Will Hospitals Give Back an Amputated Limb if You Ask For It?

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include what happened to Napoleon's looted art, why some countries drive on the left and others on the right, the pistachios that need police protection, composting dead family members, and illustrated guides to always being battle-ready - the tactical order of dressing and how to poop like a Samurai.

Monday links

Happy Memorial Day:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Lost, stolen, blown up and fed to pigs: the greatest missing masterpieces

Inside JFK’s door-to-door search for a French call girl — and why she had to look like Jackie.

NASA's Atomic Fridge Will Make the ISS the Coldest Known Place in the Universe.

The evolution of "Beauty and the Beast."

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include how to ship a whale via UPS, why you wouldn't want to drink 19th century milk unless you knew it came straight from the cow., and, for fans of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, all about Towel Day.

Monday links

Happy Memorial Day:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. 

Death in the Clouds: The Problem of Bodies on Everest

What It's Like to be Struck by Lightning.

An earlier battle in the clash of civilizations - May 29, 1453: the fall of Constantinople. Also on this date, Kurt Vonnegut's May 29, 1945 letter home after being released from being imprisoned in an underground slaughterhouse (Slaughterhouse Five) during the Dresden bombing.

Unbuilt Los Angeles: the city that might have been – in pictures.

This Dog Sits on Seven Editorial Boards.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include a new hottest chili pepper, if meat eaters acted like vegans, early performances of future stars, and T-rex dietary requirements.

Monday links

Happy Memorial Day.

Here Come the Laser Helicopters.

An 80s Replica of the Saved By the Bell Diner Opens Next Week.

Here's Kurt Vonnegut's May 29, 1945 letter home after imprisonment in an underground slaughterhouse (Slaughterhouse Five, specifically) during the Dresden bombing.

Beatrix Potter Based Peter Rabbit On Her Pothead Bunny. 

What Really Happens To Your Body When You Swallow Gum.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include the tactical order of dressing (so you'll always be battle-ready), a history of tug-of-war fatalities, an Australian town on sale for $750,000, and the giant radioactive frog steaks 1913 newspapers predicted we'd be eating.