There is, of course, no such thing as
the military perspective --
no single person can speak for all the men and women who have served in
the military -- but if you are looking for a military perspective, my
first choice would be Lt. Col. Robert Bateman who writes eloquently and
intelligently on the subject for Esquire. Here are Bateman's
recent thoughts on Memorial Day.
When the guns fell silent in the Spring of 1865, they all went home.
They scattered across the country, back across the devastated south and
the invigorated north. Then they made love to their wives, played with
their children, found new jobs or stepped back into their old ones, and
in general they tried to get on with their lives. These men were no
longer soldiers; they were now veterans of the Civil War, never to wear
the uniform again. But before long they started noticing that things
were not as they had been before.
Now, they had memories of
things that they could not erase. There were the friends who were no
longer there, or who were hobbling through town on one or two pegs, or
who had a sleeve pinned up on their chest. There were the nights that
they could not shake the feeling that something really bad was about to
happen. And, aside from those who had seen what they had seen and lived
that life, they came to realize that they did not have a lot of people
to talk to about these things. Those who had been at home, men and
women, just did not "get it." A basic tale about life in camp would need
a lot of explanation, so it was frustrating even to talk. Terminology
like "what is a picket line" and "what do you mean oblique order?" and a
million other elements, got in the way. These were the details of a
life they had lived for years but which was now suddenly so complex that
they never could get the story across to those who had not been there.
Many felt they just could not explain about what had happened, to them,
to their friends, to the nation.
So they started to congregate.
First in little groups, then in statewide assemblies, and finally in
national organizations that themselves took on a life of their own.
The
Mid-1860s are a key period in American history not just because of the
War of Rebellion, but also because this period saw the rise of "social
organizations." Fraternities, for example, exploded in the post-war
period. My own, Pi Kappa Alpha, was formed partially by veterans of the
Confederacy, Lee's men (yes, I know, irony alert). Many other
non-academic "fraternal" organizations got their start around the same
time. By the late 1860s in the north and south there was a desire to
commemorate. Not to celebrate, gloat or pine, but to remember.
Individually,
at different times and in different ways, these nascent veterans groups
started to create days to stop and reflect. These days were not set
aside to mull on a cause -- though that did happen -- but their primary
purpose was to think on the sacrifices and remember those lost. Over
time, as different states incorporated these ideas into statewide
holidays, a sort of critical legislative mass was achieved. "Decoration
Day" was born, and for a long time that was enough. The date selected
was, quite deliberately, a day upon which absolutely nothing of major
significance had occurred during the entire war. Nobody in the north or
south could try to change it to make it a victory day. It was a day for
remembering the dead through decorating their graves, and the memorials
started sprouting up in every small town in the nation. You still see
them today, north and south, in small towns and villages like my own
home of Chagrin Falls -- granite placed there so that the nation, and
their homes, should not forget the sacrifices of the men who went away
on behalf of the country and never came back.
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