Memorial Day

Dear Brother and Sisters,

This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day – to many of us that means a long weekend, barbecues, and maybe a quick vacation. But all too often we forget the true meaning of the holiday. We found a great article from another IBEW Locals web, and we are posting it below. Please read it, and join us in giving thanks to those soldiers that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. And on Monday while we’re all enjoying our day off, join us in pausing briefly to give thanks.

Fraternally yours,

IBEW Business Agents and Officers



Memorial Day is the time for Americans to reconnect with their history and core values by honoring those who gave their lives for the ideals we cherish.

More than a million American service members died in the wars and conflicts this nation fought since the first
colonial soldiers took up arms in 1775 to fight for independence. Each person who died during those conflicts was a
loved one cherished by family and friends. Each was a loss to the community and the nation.

The observance of this day was born of compassion and empathy in 1863. As the Civil War raged, grieving mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and other loved ones were cleaning confederate soldiers’ graves in Columbus, Mississippi, placing flowers on them. They noticed nearby the union soldiers’ graves, dusty, overgrown with weeds. Grieving for their own fallen soldiers, the confederate women understood that the dead union soldiers buried nearby were the cherished loved ones of families and communities far away. They cleared the tangled brush and mud from those graves as well as their own soldiers’ graves and laid flowers on them too.

Soon the tradition of a “Decoration Day” for the graves of fallen soldiers spread. On May 5,1866, when the Civil War was over, Henry Welles of Waterloo, New York, closed his drugstore and suggested that all other shops in town also close up for a day to honor all soldiers killed in the Civil War, union and confederate alike. It was a gesture of healing and reconciliation in a land ripped apart by conflict.

Sixteen years later, in 1882, the nation observed its first official Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember and honor the sacrifice of those who died in all our nation’s wars.

For decades, Memorial Day was a day in our nation when stores closed and communities gathered together for a day of parades and other celebrations with a patriotic theme. Memorial Day meant ceremonies at cemeteries around the country, speeches honoring those who gave their lives, the laying of wreaths, the playing of Taps.

In some places, these ceremonies continue. Sadly, many Americans have lost this connection with their history. All too many Americans today view military service as an abstraction, as images seen on television and in movies. For a growing percentage of the American people, Memorial Day has come to mean simply a three-day weekend or a major shopping day. Families might still gather for picnics, but for many of them, the patriotic core – the spirit of remembrance – is absent.

Many Americans have no experience with or connection to the military. There are many reasons for the disconnect. We have fewer and fewer veterans to share their stories. And many of our older veterans – especially those from World War II and Korea – tend to be reticent. They often don’t talk about their service.

Today, we have the smallest Army we’ve had in 50 years. Unlike past periods in our history, the majority of members of Congress today have not served in the military. Many Americans do not have any relatives or even neighbors who serve now or have ever served in the military. In fact, many Americans today have never even met a soldier.

In May 1996, Carmella LaSpada met a group of school children on the Mall in Washington DC. She asked them what Memorial Day meant. They all paused and then said, “That’s the day the pool opens.”

Ms. LaSpada decided she wanted to show these children and others like them why they are free and who paid for their freedom. She started the “Moment of Remembrance” campaign. Her goal is to put the “Memorial” back into Memorial Day.

She would like to see all Americans observe one minute of silence at exactly 3 p.m. on Memorial Day, as Taps plays, to honor those who sacrificed their lives for us.

That first year, 1,000 shopping malls in this country did what she asked on Memorial Day. They announced the moment of silence at 3 p.m.; so did several baseball stadiums, including those of the Yankees and Orioles; so did transportation centers, such as Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Amtrak, and bus lines. Several amusement parks announced the moment of silence.

Each year since 1996, the “No Greater Love Foundation” has worked to expand the campaign further. The goal is for every American to hear an announcement on Memorial Day at 3 p.m., calling for a moment of silence, one minute out of the year to remember those who made the greatest possible sacrifice.

I encourage you to join in the effort to spread the word about the Memorial Day moment of silence, to make it observed in more places.