This is Memorial Day, a legal holiday. Almost all government offices – local, state, and federal – are closed as are banks and other financial institutions, and there is no mail delivery today.
Under proclamations by President Joe Biden and the 50 governors, American and state flags will fly at half-staff until noon, then return to full-staff. The National Moment of Remembrance, one minute of silence, begins at 3 p.m. local time.
Nebraska U-S Senator Deb Fischer says cities and towns, big and small, come together today to continue the tradition of honoring our fallen heroes on Memorial Day, which she calls a time of solemn remembrance, but also a holiday that renews our courage, faith, and hope.
Fischer singled out some of the Nebraska service members who’ve given their lives over the years, including Sgt Cory Mracek, a Chadron native who returned to the Army after the attacks on 9/11, telling his mother “I have to go back in the Army, my country needs me. I am trained to fight, and I want to go to Afghanistan.”
Sgt Mracek deployed to Iraq in 2004 and was killed with two others by an improvised explosive device. He was later honored when Congress renamed the Chadron Post Office the Sgt Cory Mracek Memorial Post Office.
Fischer says generations to come will continue to be amazed at the way thousands Nebraskans come together in appreciation of our military, adding that “today and every day, we honor them.”
Nebraska’s other U-S Senator, former governor Pete Ricketts, says a statement made over a half-century by President John Kennedy, “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but by the men it honors, the men it remembers,” are still true today.
Ricketts says “On Memorial Day, we honor the service and sacrifice of those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We also give special thanks to the loved ones who served alongside them and whose grief today is a debt we can never repay.”
Over 25 cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day, but historians all agree the observance began in 1866 when Southern widows placed flowers on the graves of not only Confederate soldiers, but also unmarked graves of Union soldiers.
When word of the show of honor and respect reached the North, veterans groups followed suit the following year and decorated the graves of both former comrades and their wartime foes on the last day of May.
General John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Potomac – the largest Union veterans group, in 1868 designated May 30th as “Decoration Day” and welcomed about 5,000 people to Arlington National Cemetery to decorate 20,000 graves.
“Decoration Day” was later expanded to remember soldiers who died in any U-S war or military action, but the name Memorial Day – first used in 1882 – became the more common usage after World War II.
It was formalized by Congress in 1967 and the date was fixed a year later as the last Monday in May as part of a federal law creating several 3-day holiday weekends.