It’s time to revive Decoration Day
By Jason Stverak
One hundred and fifty years ago this summer, a procession of widows and orphans solemnly arrived at the fields of Gettysburg, Pa., which a year earlier had witnessed the greatest battle ever to take place on this continent.
REMEMBERING: Gettysburg stands as a reminder of those who gave all.
They came to plant flags and lay wreaths in cemetery that President Abraham Lincoln had famously dedicated the previous fall. The graves in the cemetery were fresh, and the men resting beneath them were husbands, fathers and sons who had left home to fight for freedom and fallen on the field during three days of unthinkable carnage.
Since the earliest days of civilization, societies have marked the places where the dead are buried, and paid particular respect to the gravesites of fallen soldiers.
