Former Aberdeen mayor Levsen: Of all our patriotic holidays, Memorial Day holds a special and somber meaning
As we observe Memorial Day 2024, it’s appropriate to take note of how distinct this special day is in relation to all other patriotism-related observances.
The USA has many calendar days with military and national pride themes and all have a theme, usually officially designated.
Veterans Day is Nov. 11, based on the end of World War I. It honors and recognizes all who have ever served in American armed forces.
Armed Forces Day falls on various days in May and is celebrated to salute those currently serving in uniform.
Flag Day is June 14 and was given its first presidential endorsement by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. It’s the day the flag was named ahead of all the other Revolutionary War designs and thus made official in 1777.
July 4 recognizes our Declaration of Independence from England. It sometimes gets conflated incorrectly with the Constitution. Its unique importance was recognized with celebrations in the years immediately after ratification, even though the fight to make it real was ongoing.
Constitution Day is Sept. 17, designated in 2004 by Congress. Schools are encouraged to teach about it. Some we hear from today may have missed the lesson indicating “suspending the Constitution” is not really an option.
We acknowledge D-Day each June 6, the infamy of Pearl Harbor Day on Dec. 7 every year, and also Sept. 11, with its tragic memories. WW2 victory days — VE-Day for Europe, VJ-Day for the war against Japan — are remembered less and less now, but early after the war were significant.
Jan. 6 will someday come to be recognized for the defeat of an attempted violent overthrow of Congressional election duties.
Memorial Day is different from all of those other days in a very significant way. It’s officially designated to honor all those killed in the line of duty as members of the United States armed forces. It actually started soon after the Civil War (the cemetery at Antietam, Maryland, one of the great battles of the Civil War, is seen above in a public domain image posted on wikimedia commons) and was known as “Decoration Day.”
This is the purest and most universally endorsed special day, even for those who have strongly divergent views on how one should act as a patriot, or whether the wars were justified.
As Aberdeen mayor, I was honored to be a part of some Memorial Day events. My message to those attending was to encourage all to reflect on how much was lost as a consequence of each early death.
Memorial Day services in cemeteries led to an opportunity to wander among the graves and I’d recommend all to do it sometime. Reading tombstones you see death dates coincidental with times of war chiseled with birthdates
20-something years earlier. Pretty likely that’s a war death. This evokes thinking of just how much was missed from this person not having a life past the war.
And, one cannot imagine the grief of the family involved. It’s a profound and sobering thing to personify what the sacrifice of the actual person buried at your feet meant then and still means to us today.
Mike Levsen is a former mayor of Aberdeen and a regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard.
