Memorial Day

Greetings to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

I slept through most of today, forcing myself to wake just in time for supper.

After chow, Michael George, a good buddy here at the Old Soldiers' Home permitted me to use his computer to link my blog to my personal web site, and also work a few good crossword puzzles, a special treat, since the public computers provided for the residents of the Old Soldiers' Home are not properly installed or set up, and so I'm unable to access my favorite crossword puzzles or edit my own personal web site.

Anyway, I was up all last night, listening to one of my favorite radio programs, COAST TO COAST AM, being hosted by Art Bell, himself (a REALLY special treat, as he has mostly retired).

It is an all-night talk radio program, focusing on unexplained phenomena, and last night's program was devoted to UFO sightings in the former Soviet Union.

So, what was your day like?

Did you "celebrate"?

A friend of mine, now deceased, once pointed out something important to remember about our precious heritage.

Memorial Day is NOT the same as Veterans Day!

We don't "celebrate" Memorial Day - - - we solemnly observe it.

Furthermore, Memorial Day is a MILITARY occasion, a day reserved for paying special homage to our MILITARY dead, not for putting flowers on Great Aunt Gertrude's grave, something which can be done on any of the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.

Memorial Day is for the dead, but Veterans Day is for the living.

Veterans Day is the appropriate time for parades and celebrations, not Memorial Day.

I think those are important distinctions, which unfortunately, have now become almost universally overlooked.

Also, let's give credit where credit is due.

History is written by those who won the war, and thus, General John Alexander Logan, a Union Army general during the War Between the States, who is buried in the National Cemetery here at the Old Soldiers' Home, gets credit for creating "Decoration Day", which later became Memorial Day.

But, he got the idea from observing the CONFEDERATE custom of decorating military gravesites.

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

" - - - the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, and we in dreams behold the Hebrides."