Speech: "Department of the Chesapeake Commanders Address Memorial Day, 30 May, Arlington National Cemetery"

Department of the Chesapeake Commanders Address Memorial Day, 30 May, Arlington National Cemetery

On Memorial Day May 30th 1884, Oliver Wendell Holmes began a speech to the John Sedgewick Post #4 Grand Army of the Republic by saying the following:

"Not long ago I heard a young man ask why people still kept up Memorial Day, and it set me thinking of the answer. Not the answer that you and I should give to each other-not the expression of those feelings that, so long as you live, will make this day sacred to memories of love and grief and heroic youth--but an answer which should command the assent of those who do not share our memories, and in which we of the North and our brethren of the South could join in perfect accord."

Today, I as Judge Holmes did one hundred and twenty-nine years ago, find myself speaking to the proverbial choir.  Those of us gathered together in this most sacred place need not be reminded of why we continue to honor the memory of the sacrifice made by the heroic men buried all around us.  For us Memorial Day is rife with meaning and rich in the traditions of our long association with this hallowed anniversary.

However, many of our fellow citizens find themselves indifferent to the occasion, bereft of our enthusiasm and commitment. Beguiled by commercialism and self interest, striped of the traditions, which have united us for more than  one hundred and forty-five years, much of the American population has lost touch with the reason for this observance.  In his speech in 1884 Judge Holmes commented that "To fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might . . . that you must be willing to commit yourself to a course . . . without being able to forsee exactly where you will come out."   In General Order #11 John Logan put himself at the forefront of the fight.  He set out to ensure that the memory of the men, who proved themselves through heroism and devotion to country, would never be lost.  Logan himself tells us our duty when he says we are to preserving and strengthen the fraternal feelings which bind us to the men, we are to assure that our progeny cherish the memory of the dead, and we are to "let no vandalism of avarice, no ravages of time testify to the present or coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of our free and undivided republic."

So here we are, a band of brothers and sisters bound to honor the men who lie buried on these gently sloping hills or in far flung graves both named and unnamed.  We will continue to embrace them all in the loving remembrance that is due to them and we shall remain true to the that portion of General Order 11, which says cherish the memory of the dead.  However, we will not have fully met the objective of that order unless we take up the fight to battle against he vandalism of avarice.  Oliver Holmes told the men of the GAR you must commit to a course of action for which you cannot foresee the outcome.  Victory can only be won by those who preserver in the face of daunting odds.  Today we are the vanguard of an army consisting of our brothers and sisters in the Allied Orders, and the victory is ours to win or lose  Therefore we must be the voice of these our honored dead and we must teach our fellow citizens to honor the traditions so important to our ancestors.  So to must we reach out to our children and inculcate them in the rituals and tributes required to honor and remember the past.  Yes it is our task and we must not fail in this our duty to keep the tradition and meaning of Memorial Day alive.

I thank you for listening and I thank you for your passion in the cause of remembering our soldiers of every war.

May God grant you his grace as you travel from this hallowed place and may God grant us the strength to keep faith with these heroic men, gone from sight, but yet with us as long as we live up to the sacred trust we have been given.

 

 

Written by Mark R. Day. Copyright by Mark R. Day, 5/23/13, all rights reserved

"This speech was given at the Old Amphitheater, Arlington National Cemetery, on 30 May 2013 as part of the traditional Memorial Day Ceremony's held by the Lincoln-Cushing Camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War."