Memorial Day Quotes

Today, May 31, we celebrate the one who gave their life for our freedom. Today we celebrate Memorial Day 2010. Below you can read some of the most remembered and the best Memorial Day quotes to share the joy of this celebration and to pay the respect to those gone long time ago.

You can share your own favorites Memorial Day quotes in the comments below. Happy Memorial Day!

For love of country they accepted death… - James A. Garfield

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. - William Penn

The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children. – William Havard

On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation! – Thomas William Parsons

We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them. – Francis A. Walker

The dead soldier’s silence sings our national anthem. - Aaron Kilbourn

Who kept the faith and fought the fight; The glory theirs, the duty ours. – Wallace Bruce

And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I won’t forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me. – Lee Greenwood

The brave die never, though they sleep in dust:
Their courage nerves a thousand living men. – Minot J. Savage

read more

Memorial Day Poems

As I referenced in another post, Memorial Day commemorates the men and women who serve and have served our country in the armed forces. So while we are chowing down on burgers and beer this weekend, let's all take a moment of reflection to respect what Memorial Day is all about.

There have been several poems written about Memorial Day. Here is one I found from titled "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa, a veteran of the Vietnam War. More poems can be found here at the Huffington Post.

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

read more

Memorial Day Quotes

Every year, the last Monday of May commemorates those men and women of the United States of America fallen while serving their country. A long time ago Memorial Day was held in the memory of Union soldiers who died on the battlefields of the Civil War, later it was extended to those who gave their lives in World War I.

Memorial Day is a Federal Holiday. People usually take their time to visit cemeteries and memorials, remembering their lost relatives or honoring the cause for which so many people have given their lives. Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), an American association of war veterans who have served overseas take donations for poppies the days before Memorial Day, in the spirit of John McCrae’s 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.

    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.

Below you can find some quotes for Memorial Day:

“The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.” – Benjamin Disraeli, (British  Prime Minister and Novelist, 1804-1881)

“Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” – Billy Graham

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” Arthur Ashe

“Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.” Daniel Webster

“We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart.” Albert Einstein

“It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” Norman Schwarzkopf

“They are dead; but they live in each Patriot’s breast, and their names are engraven on honor’s bright crest.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

read more

Memorial Day History

In order to pay a tribute to the brave American men and women who lost their lives for military service, American people observe Memorial Day.  Formally it is known as the Decoration Day and it commemorated on the last Monday of May. This year Memorial Day will be on 31st May. It is a federal holiday in America.

Memorial Day history runs back to the times of Civil War in American. Several communities reserved a day that showed the end of the war. It was also a memorial for the people who died during it. The first Memorial Day was formally observed at Washington Race Course, in Charleston, South Carolina by enslaved black people. On 1st May 1865 more then ten thousand mostly black people did a small celebration giving birth to the Decoration Day. 2800 children also took part in the celebration which included a small picnic, singing, dancing and few sermons. Before the Race Course was a mass grave of Union Soldiers who died during the war and it also was a temporary Confederation prison camp.

On 5th May 1866 first time Memorial Day was observed in Waterloo, New York. Many Southern States refused to mark the day in the beginning due to their aggression towards the Union Army. However after World War II all the states accepted this day as a federal holiday.

Initially the name Decorative Day was used to mark this day. Memorial Day was used for the first time in 1882. This name gained its popularity after World War II and on 28th June 1968 American Congress passed the bill of marking this day as a federal holiday.

read more