Memorial Day 2013

When I was growing up in Elgin, Illinois, I played clarinet in the junior high (Kimball) and high school bands (Larkin).  Besides school concerts and football games, our performances included Labor Day and Memorial Day Parades.  We only had "winter" uniforms which were wool to keep us warm during the football halftime shows so both parades often meant we were sweating and aching after our several mile march.  We played Sousa and the Marine Hymn and, on Memorial Day, marched to the local cemetary. 

Since living in Tucson, we sometimes have gone to the Tucson Pops Concert on Memorial Day, but rarely do we attend a parade.  Yesterday, we happened to be driving past the East Lawn Cemetary on Grant Rd. and saw the flags fluttering over the headstones and the larger ones posted as sentries on the main cemetary road.  In today's PARADE, I read "War and Remembrance" by Drew Gilpin Faust which also notes her new book, The Republic of Suffering, and the PBS show Death and the Civil War.  She suggests readers look up the names of Civil War soldiers in order to connect to the historical origins of Memorial Day.  Instead, I googled "names of dead soldiers in Afghanistan" and came to this photo and link:



http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/may/07/dod-names-5-soldiers-killed-deadliest-day-us-force/

It brings the "holiday" home to my heart to see the faces of four of the five soldiers who recently died in the name of fighting for what I hope was worth their lives.

What memories do you have of Memorial Day and how are you keeping the holiday in your heart?