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Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and I will join my American Legion post in conducting appropriate ceremonies at seven area cemeteries. Listening to all the build-up (especially in commercial advertising), I have come to the conclusion that many people have no idea what Memorial Day is all about. Actually, it is very simple.

Memorial Day is the day upon which we honor those service men and women who died in the performance of their duty to their country. Many people, unfortunately, mistakenly believe that it is the day when we pay our respects to all our friends and relatives who have passed away.

We have another holiday on which we honor our veterans who served their country and lived to tell about it. This is Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, and is officially observed at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of each year in commemoration of the signing of the Armistice which ended World War I.

We honor those who are currently serving their country on Armed Forces Day, which is celebrated on the 3rd Saturday in May (the 17th, this year).

As you can see, we have separate holidays for our active duty military personnel, our veterans, and our men and women who were killed in action or died of other causes while on active duty. In this way, we are able to salute each group without "diluting" the honors for any particular group.

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday. If you have a flag, please display it proudly and properly. It should be flown at half-staff between dawn and noon, at shich time it should be raised briskly to the peak of the staff to wave proudly in the breeze.

Always nice to get a refresher course in proper ways! I have some plans tomorrow as well, attending the Virginia War Memorial Service.
Thanks To You & Every Vet On This Board For Your Service,
A Former Airmen,

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Nice pics, Bruce! I don't have any to post, myself, because my hands were busy. I do notice a similarity between your honor guard and mine, however. It seems that we share a tendency to gray hair and rounded tummies!

I took several short vid clips, I just can't get webshots to load 'em? My cpu /adobe let me veiw 'em, thats it so far, one of them is the Color Guard and the 21 Report Salute! (Only one shot, what a loud one though)

I must have screamed at the radio and tv about six times today...things like "and today we honor veterans who have served..." "or and thank a service man or woman today." I would be screaming you blankety blank blank we honor those who gave the ulitimate sacrifice so that you would have the freedom to be so stupid!!!!

It makes me so mad!

Amen to that, Brother! I've been yelling at my TV and radio for the last week, along with anyone else who will listen. We did memorial services at seven area cemeteries, today, and I even heard the preachers making the same idiotic blunder at five of them. We had to really scoot in order to get from one cemetery to the next, or I would have taken time to publicly point out their ignorance!

Lifer - thanks for the note and rememberence.

Zac plays in the drumline and the parade starts in its usual route, thru downtown, and then cuts over to the cemetary about 3/4 mile away. Unlike the "parades", this is led by the VFW colorguard, a group of Vets, some military vehicles, and then the marching band in full uniform. Simple - no fire trucks, local advertisers, zip.

There is a nice service, followed by a laying of flowers in the memorial section, placement of the wreath, reading of the interned vets, a fly over, closing comments, and then taps is played by 2 high schoolers.

The students are placed on opposite sides of the park and play in echo of each other. Small town, not a dry eye in the house.

I know what you mean about "not a dry eye in the house." We do the honors at 7 area cemeteries, 5 of which are tiny little cemeteries where towns used to be. The only parade is at our 6th stop, where the Legion color guard leads the parade, followed by the Grand Marshal (always the oldest veteran still living in Avon, IL), disabled veterans from several wars, and the combined junior high/high school band. Like you said...no fire trucks, no politicians, no commercial entries, just veterans and the band.

At each cemetery, we read an opening prayer and call the roll of all veterans interred there. (The Civil War roll call includes veterans from both sides.) Then we fire the salute and I play taps.

We started at 0800 at the first cemetery and finished at 1500 at the seventh. Someone asked how we could do it all day, like that. I simply replied "It's my duty!"

took the weasel(tracked vehicle ) in the glassboro n.j. parade and also the jeep , m37 is down with a fender out for repair

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I wish I could figure out how to post the video clips?[/url]