Page 12A               THE MEADE COUNTY MESSENGER  Brandenburg, Kentucky         June 9, 2010                   

        Memorial Day marked in area ceremonies

By VICKEY CARWILE and

LARRY SEE JR.

Messenger Staff

Veteran  Jim Burns pauses for a moment of silence at the War Memorial. 

Burns is a veteranof the Cold War and served with the 82nd Airborne Division.

     Veterans and County Officials pose for a photo during

    the Memorial Day Ceremony which tool place May 31st

          in front of the Meade County Courthouse.

In celebration of Memorial Day 2010 here at the Meade County Courthouse, I would like to start by reading an Executive Order released on May 2, 2000;

As Memorial Day approaches, it is time to pause and consider the

true meaning of this holiday. Memorial Day represents one day of

national awareness and reverence, honoring those Americans who died

while defending our Nation and its values. While we should honor these

heroes every day for the profound contribution they have made to

securing our Nation's freedom, we should honor them especially on

Memorial Day.

In this time of unprecedented success and prosperity throughout our

land, I ask that all Americans come together to recognize how fortunate

we are to live in freedom and to observe a universal ``National Moment

of Remembrance'' on each Memorial Day. This memorial observance

represents a simple and unifying way to commemorate our history and

honor the struggle to protect our freedoms.

Etc………

William J. Clinton

 Note:  This memorandum was released by the Office of the Press

Secretary on May 3.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

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 (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps."

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.

I would like to recite a famous speech that was given at Gettysburg by President Lincoln on November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

We are here today to honor our fellow Meade County citizens, their names etched in these monuments. They gave their all, so we can enjoy the freedoms we all have today.