Memorial Day 2020

This is a day of mixed emotion as we honor men and women who made the supreme sacrifice in service to their country. They gave their lives that we might live out our own in an experiment of community called the United States. Some of us may be on holiday at the beach or mountains while others gather with family and friends for a cookout at home. And there are those who may find themselves alone and not necessarily by choice this year. At some point all of us will take some moments to think of these honored men and women and what they have given us and our families.

Many of us grew up knowing this day as Decoration Day but now it is best known as Memorial Day. Though both its date and scope have changed over time its central meaning remains strong. At virtually every crossroad town from sea to sea, there will be old soldiers, flags, a speech or two, a band, and prayers. These events will take place at memorial walls bearing the names of the honored dead. Invariably, the audiences will be small, but firmly dedicated to the idea that the nation will always remember the cost of freedom.

A common theme in all of those memorial gatherings mentioned earlier will be music. The American composer, Charles Ives, captured much of the historic character of this day in his composition, Holiday Symphony, completed in 1913. Section II of that work, "Decoration Day," has a number of familiar tunes, but you may not recognize them without a guide. Like the holiday itself, Ives gives us rich, complex, and contemplative moments in time and space as we hear his interpretation of his father's holiday from dawn to dusk.

A Soldier's Burial

by General George S. Patton (1943)

Not midst the chanting of the Requiem Hymn,

Nor with the solemn ritual of prayer,

Neath misty shadows from the oriel glass,

And dreamy perfume of the incensed air

Was he interred;

But in the subtle stillness after fight,

And the half light between the night and the day,

We dragged his body all besmeared with mud,

And dropped it, clod-like, back into the clay.

Yet who shall say that he was not content,

Or missed the prayers, or drone of chanting choir,

He who had heard all day the Battle Hymn

Sung on all sides by a thousand throats of fire.

What painted glass can lovelier shadows cast,

Than those the evening sky shall ever shed,

While, mingled with their light, Red Battle's Sun

Completes in magic colors o'er our dead,

The flag for which they died.