What Memorial Day is all about.

It started as a day to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers after the Civil War. Those at the time assumed that there would be no more important wars requiring these ceremonies. Most of them would have been hard pressed to comprehend the next century and the carnage and death that would follow in Cuba, Flanders, Normandy, Korea, and a little French Colony that no one thought about in their era - Vietnam. Or the war that was never declared, in two nations far from here with little of concern to most of us at the time of the civil war but of the most extreme importance in this era of machines and plastics.

Now, it's a weekend getaway to a place at the beach, or a parade where they throw candy at the kids, after which we burn meat, eat too much, and hang out doing things we normally can't or won't do, in celebration of the coming warmth.

Just a reminder of what Memorial day is really about - my blog entry from last Memorial day:

http://ifiknewwhat.blogspot.com/2006/05/remembering-bobby.html