On Memorial Day, we honor the Americans who have died protecting and serving this country in the Armed Forces of the United States of America. It is a time when all of us should—no matter who we are, where we come from, or where we fall along the political spectrum—forget about politics and our differences and remember those who gave the last full measure of devotion to our great republic and remember what unites us as a people.
Memorial Day became an official holiday in 1971, but it started in 1868 as Decoration Day. It began as an effort to remember those who died in the Civil War, the bloody brother-against-brother conflict that killed and wounded more Americans than any other war in our history. In fact, it was because of the Recent Unpleasantness Between the States, as it was sometimes referred to by gentile Southern ladies, that we established the first national…
