American Minute with Bill Federer
Memorial Day -Honoring Heroes of Courage, Sacrifice & Faith
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Douglas MacArthur
told West Point cadets, May 1962:
"The soldier,
above all other men, is required to practice
the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice.
In battle
and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those
Divine attributes
which his
Maker
gave when
He created man in His own image ...
No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of
Divine help
which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be,
the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind."
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Memorial Day
in America began during the
Civil War
when southern women scattered spring flowers on graves of both northern
Union
and southern
Confederate
soldiers,
In the
War Between the States,
over a half-million died.
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Many places claimed to have held the
original Memorial Day,
such as:
- Warrenton, Virginia;
- Columbus, Georgia;
- Savannah, Georgia;
- Gettysburg, Pennsylvania;
- Boalsburg, Pennsylvania;
- Waterloo, New York.
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One such place was
Charleston,
South Carolina, where a mass grave was uncovered of 257 Union soldiers who had died in a prison camp.
On May 1, 1865,
former slaves organized a parade,
led by 2,800 singing Black children, and reburied the soldiers with honor as an act of reparation and gratitude for their ultimate sacrifice which gave freedom to the slaves.
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In 1868,
General John A. Logan,
commander of the Civil War veterans' organization
"The Grand Army of the Republic,"
called for a
Decoration Day
to be observed annually on May 30.
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President James Garfield's
only executive order was in 1881 where he gave government workers May 30 off so they could
decorate the graves
of those who died in the Civil War.
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During
World War I,
a Canadian Expeditionary gunner and medical officer, John McCrae,
fought in the
Second Battle of Ypres near Flanders, Belgium.
Describing the battle as a "nightmare," as the enemy made one of the first chlorine gas attacks,
John McCrae
wrote:
"For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ...
And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way."
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Finding one of his friends killed,
John McCrae
helped bury him along with the other dead in a field.
Noticing the field covered with poppy flowers, he composed the famous
Memorial Day poem,
"In Flanders Fields":
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
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Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
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Notable individuals who fought in
World War I
include:
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- Sergeant Alvin York, took out 35 machine guns and captured 132 enemy;
- John J. Pershing, General of the Armies;
- Douglas MacArthur, Brigadier General;
- George S. Patton, tank commander;
- Leonard Wood, future Army Chief of Staff;
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- Harry S Truman, artillery officer and future 33rd President;
- Eddie Rickenbacker, commander of 94th Areo Squadron;
- Quentin Roosevelt, a pilot, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was shot down and died;
- Charles Whittlesey, commander of the "Lost Battalion" behind lines;
- Frank Luke -"balloon buster";
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- Irving Berlin, composer of "God Bless America";
- Edouard Izac, naval office captured on U-Boat, who escaped;
- Henry Johnson of the "Harlem Hellfighters";
- Dan Daly, Marine Sergeant charged and captured machine gun nests;
- Ernest Hemingway, author of A Farewell to Arms;
- J.R.R. Tolken, British author of The Lord of the Rings;
- C.S. Lewis, British author of The Chronicles of Narnia.
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Also,
Orval William Epperson,
the grandfather of the writer of this article, fought in
World War I.
Born on a rugged Ozark farm near Anderson, Missouri, he fought in France, being assigned to the 338th Machine Gun Battalion 88th Division.
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His only son,
Orval Wilford "Billy" Epperson,
served in
World War II
as a bombardier on a B17 Flying Fortress, 525th Squadron, 379 Bomb Group A.P.O. 550 (#0-768946).
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23-year-old "Billy" Epperson
flew on their B-17 from Camp Crowder in southwest Missouri, over his hometown of Neosho, then headed for Kimbolton, England.
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He had written a Mother's Day note to his mom, tied it with a handkerchief to a small weight and dropped it from the plane.
A neighbor got it and brought to his mother.
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Little did anyone know that that would be the closest they would ever be again, as
Billy
was shot down by the Nazis over the English Channel near Holland on July 9, 1944.
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In 1921,
President Warren Harding
had the remains of an unknown soldier killed in France during
World War I
buried in the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
at Arlington Cemetery.
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Inscribed on the Tomb is the phrase:
"HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD."
Since 1921, it has been the tradition for Presidents to lay a wreath on the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
which is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
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The number 21 being the highest salute, the sentry takes 21 steps, faces the tomb for 21 seconds, turns and pauses 21 seconds, then retraces his steps.
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Memorial Day
grew to honor all who
gave their lives
defending America's freedom in every war, including:
- Revolutionary War: 1775-1783 - 25,000;
- War of 1812: - 20,000;
- Mexican-American War: 1846-1848 - 13,283;
- Civil War: 1861-1865 - 625,000;
- Spanish-American War: 1898 - 2,446;
- World War 1: 1917-1918 - 116,516;
- World War 2: 1941-1945 - 405,399;
- Korean War: 1950-1953 - 36,516;
- Vietnam War: 1955-1975 - 58,209;
- Persian Gulf War: 1990-1991 - 258;
- Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan): 2001-2014 - 2,356;
- Operation Iraqi Freedom: 2003-2012 - 4,489; and
- ongoing wars against Islamic terrorism.
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In 1968, one hundred years after the first observance,
Memorial Day
was moved to the
last Monday in May.
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At the
Memorial Day Ceremony,
May 31, 1993,
President Bill Clinton
remarked:
"The inscription on the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
says that he is
'Known but to God.'
But that is only partly true. While the soldier's name is known only to God, we know a lot about him.
We know he served his country, honored his community, and died for the cause of freedom.
And we know that no higher praise can be assigned to any human being than those simple words ...
In the presence of those buried all around us, we ask the support of all Americans in the aid and blessing of God Almighty."
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In 1958,
President Eisenhower
placed soldiers in the tomb from
WWII
and the
Korean War.
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In 1984,
President Ronald Reagan
placed a soldier from the
Vietnam War
in the tomb.
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DNA test later identified him as pilot
Michael Blassie,
a graduate of St. Louis University High School, 1966 and the U.S. Air Force Academy, 1970, whose A-37B Dragonfly was shot down near An Loc, South Vietnam.
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In 1998,
Michael Blassie
was reburied at Jefferson Memorial Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.
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On
Memorial Day,
1923,
President Calvin Coolidge
stated:
"There can be no peace with the forces of evil.
Peace
comes only through the establishment of
the supremacy of the forces of good.
That way lies through sacrifice ... 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'"
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Charles Michael Province,
U.S. Army, wrote the poem:
"It is the
Soldier,
not the minister
Who has given us
freedom of religion.
It is the
Soldier,
not the reporter
Who has given us
freedom of the press.
It is the
Soldier,
not the poet
Who has given us
freedom of speech.
It is the
Soldier,
not the campus organizer
Who has given us
freedom to protest.
It is the
Soldier,
not the lawyer
Who has given us the
right to a fair trial.
It is the
Soldier,
not the politician
Who has given us the
right to vote.
It is the
Soldier
who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag."
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In his
Memorial Day Address,
May 31, 1923,
President Calvin Coolidge
said:
"Settlers
came here from mixed motives ... Generally defined, they were seeking
a broader freedom.
They were intent upon establishing
a Christian commonwealth
in accordance to the principle of
self-government
...
It has been said that '
God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness.'"
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Coolidge
was citing an Election Sermon given in Boston, April 29, 1669, by Massachusetts Governor
Judge William Stoughton,
commenting on how persecution led Puritans to flee England and settle the New World:
"God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness."
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Henry W. Longfellow
used a similar line in his classic
Courtship of Miles Standish:
"God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting."
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This was explained further in
Benjamin Franklin Morris’
classic
The Christian Life and Character of The Civil Institutions of The United States
(1864):
“The persecutions of the
Puritans
in
England
for non-conformity, and the religious agitations and conflicts in
Germany
by
Luther,
in
Geneva
by
Calvin,
and in
Scotland
by
Knox,
were the preparatory
ordeals
for qualifying
Christian
men for the work of
establishing the civil institutions
on the
American continent.
'God sifted’
in these conflicts
‘a whole nation that He might send choice grain over into the wilderness’;
and the blood and persecution of
martyrs
became the
seed
of both the
church and the state
...
It was in these schools of
fiery trial
that the
founders of the American republic
were educated and prepared for
their grand Christian mission
...
They were t
rained in stormy times,
in order to prepare them to ... establish the
fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty
and of just systems of civil government.”
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Concluding in his
Memorial Day Address
that America's republic is worth preserving,
President Calvin Coolidge
stated May 31, 1923:
"They had a genius for organized society on the foundations of
piety, righteousness, liberty,
and
obedience of the law
...
Who can fail to see in it
the hand of destiny?
Who can doubt that it has been guided by
a Divine Providence?"
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
wjfederer@gmail.com
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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