MEMORIAL DAY 1999
                   George M Barclay
		Beltsville, MD
    

       ITS ORIGIN IS CLOUDED IN THE MISTS AND CONFUSION
    FOLLOWING THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR.
       MANY HAVE LAID CLAIM TO BE THE ORIGINATOR OF
    THIS DAY TO HONOR OUR DECEASED.
       SOME CREDIT THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC WHO
    UNDER GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN,ON MAY 5, 1868 ISSUED
    AN ORDER WHICH SET MAY 30 AS NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY.
       BUT,THE STREWING OF FLOWERS ON RECENT GRAVES
    BEGAN IN APRIL 1865 JUST AFTER APPOMATTOX AND THE
    ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
       SOME OF THESE EARLY OBSERVANCES ARE DOCUMENTED
    WHILE OTHERS ARE NOT.
       BOALSBURG PENNSYLVANIA HAS A SIGN;"BOALSBURG
    PA,AN AMERICAN VILLAGE,BIRTHPLACE OF MEMORIAL DAY."
    THEIR CLAIM IS BASED ON THE DEEDS OF MISS EMMA
    HUNTER WHO DECORATED THE GRAVE OF HER FATHER COLONEL
    JAMES HUNTER WHO FELL AT GETTYSBURG. SHE AND A MRS.
    MEYER,WHOSE SON HAD BEEN KILLED, CONCEIVED THE IDEA
    OF DECORATING THE GRAVES. THIS WAS THE SUMMER OF
    1864.
       IN APRIL OF 1865, A MRS. SUE LANGDON VAUGHN WENT
    TO THE CEMETERY IN VICKSBURG,MISSISSIPPI TO DECORATE
    SOLDIERS' GRAVES.
       ON JUNE 6, 1865 THE WOMEN OF WINCHESTER,VIRGINIA
    WENT TO THE CONFEDERATE CEMETERY AND DECORATED THE
    GRAVES WITH FLOWERS.
       ON APRIL 25, 1866 THE WOMEN OF COLUMBUS,MISS-
    ISSIPPI, AGAINST ADVICE OF THEIR MEN,
    MARCHED TO WHAT IS NOW FRIENDSHIP CEMETERY IN WHICH
    ARE BURIED UNION AND CONFEDERATE TROOPS WHO FELL IN
    THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 1500 CONFEDERATE AND 100 UNION
    DEAD LIE SIDE BY SIDE. THIS OBSERVANCE INSPIRED
    FRANCIS MILES FINCH,A CO-FOUNDER OF CORNELL UNIVER-
    SITY TO WRITE:
    	THE FLOW OF THE INLAND RIVER
    	WHENCE THE FLEETS OF IRON HAVE FLED,
    	WHERE THE BLADES OF THE GRAVE GRASS QUIVER,
    	ASLEEP ARE THE RANKS OF THE DEAD;
    	UNDER THE SOD AND THE DEW,
    	WAITING THE JUDGMENT DAY;
    	UNDER THE ONE,THE BLUE,
    	    UNDER THE OTHER, THE GRAY...."   

    ANOTHER--CARBONDALE,ILLINOIS CLAIMS THAT THEIR
    OBSERVANCE OF "DECORATION DAY" ON APRIL 29,1866 WAS
    FIRST.

       NOT BE BE OUTDONE, WATERLOO,NEW YORK HAS LEGALLY
    ESTABLISHED ITS CLAIM. A DRUGGIST,HENRY C. WELLS
    SUGGESTED,IN 1865,THAT CIVIL WAR GRAVES BE DECORATED
    WITH FLOWERS. THEN NELSON ROCKEFELLER, GOVERNOR, ON 
    MARCH 7, 1966 FORMALLY PROCLAIMED WATERLOO AS THE
    ORIGINAL SITE OF
    MEMORIAL DAY. CONGRESS CONCURRED AND PRESIDENT
    LYNDON JOHNSON PUBLISHED AN OFFICIAL PROCLAMATION.
    

                   Dulce Et Decorum Est
		     Wilfred Owen
    

    Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
    Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
    Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
    And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
    Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
    But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
    Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
    Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
    

    Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
    Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
    But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
    And floundering like a man in fire or lime . . .
    Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
    As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
    

    In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
    He plunges at me, "uttering, choking, drowning.

    If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
    Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
    And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
    His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
    If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
    Come gargling from the froth orrupted lungs,
    Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
    Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
    My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
    To children ardent for some desperate glory, 0
    The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est,
    Pro patria mori.
  

    "  ...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"
		Abraham Lincoln
 	              Gettysburg Address

                Soldiers Dream 

    I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears;
    And caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts;
    And buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts;
    And rusted every bayonet with His tears.   

    And there were no more bombs, of ours or Theirs,
    Not even an old flint-lock, nor even a piker.
    But God was vexed, and gave all power to Michael
    And when I woke he'd seen to our repairs.
    

                    Norman Mailer

    This is now at the core of a prodigious national
    embarrassment. War is never to be easily defended,
    but even so, there is a visceral difference between a
    conbat devoted uniquely to bombing and participation in
    a ground war. Ground war is always cruel beyond human
    comprehension, but there are occasional examples of
    heroism or sacrifice, and since both of the adversaries lose
    young men, there is, with all else, a hint of shared sorrow
    on both sides. Over the years and decades, that can even
    permit a reconciliation. 
       Bombing, however, is oppression. If the bombing is
    done with the notion that our own blood is not to 
    be shed, it is obscene. In large part, people who are 
    bombed will never forgive the aggressor. We can hardly
    wish to meditate upon the detestation of America that we
    are seeding in all the poor populations of the world.
       Offering his explanation of Clinton's reluctance to send
    in ground troops, Tony Blair said, " . . . Kosovo is a very
    long way from Kansas." It is. It may even be too far away.
    If we as a nation are not willing to shed our blood to help
    the Kosovars, then it is time to disabuse ourselves of the
    notion that we can prevent genocide, actual or psychic. All
    we can do, using our present methods, is proliferate
    havoc.
    

    		Strange Meeting
			    Wilfred Owen 
    

    It seemed that out of battle I escaped
    Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
    Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
    Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
    Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
    Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
    With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
    Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
    And by his smile, ~ knew that sullen hall,
    By his dead smile ~ knew we stood in Hell.
    With a thousand pains that vision's face was "rained;
    Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
    And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
    "Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."
    "None," said that other, "save the undone years,
    The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
    Was my life also; I went hunting wild
    After the wildest beauty in the world,
    Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
    But mocks the steady running of the hour,
    And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
    For of my glee might many men have laughed,
    And of my weeping something had been left,
    Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
    The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
    Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
    Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
    They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
    None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
    Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
    Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
    To miss the march of this retreating world
    Into vain citadels that are not walled.
    Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
    I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
    Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
    I would have poured my spirit without stint
    But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
    Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
    

    I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
    I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
    I Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
    I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
    Let us sleep now