Giving thought to the upcoming holiday

Like many companies, Pinnacol's offices will be closed on Monday May 31st, in observance of the Memorial Day holiday. Like many of you I'm looking forward to the time off with friends and family. In anticipating a fun-filled three day weekend I caught myself forgetting to think, if even for just a moment, about why we have this holiday. That made me realize I don't know too much about the origins of Memorial Day. In today's world it took just a couple of seconds thanks to Google to learn what brought about this holiday and I thought I'd share some of what I found (thanks to http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html).

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers killed during the Civil War at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring not just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May though several southern states still have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans, (myself included), have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored or neglected. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades.

There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50's on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye's Heights. And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

Pinnacol employees enjoy 8 company paid holidays every year, and they are all special in their own way. Most of them are clear in what and why we are celebrating. This upcoming Monday I might actually take a moment to remember the reason for this one.