Happy Throwback Thursday, friends. It’s almost Memorial Day. This is the weekend that, typically, many people, especially office workers, look forward to Memorial Day as their first weekday off of the year, even more are excited about the long weekend as they make plans to head to the beach, plan mini-vacations, pack for family picnics or barbecues in the great outdoors, head to the community pool, or even head to the nearest home improvement store and pick up the items necessary to tackle their latest house project.

But it’s important to keep sight of the real reason for the holiday…

Observed on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day is set aside to honor the thousands of service men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the U.S. military – their lives.

Some people erroneously believe Memorial Day is a day to remember all veterans, both living and dead, while others mistakenly think it’s a day set aside to honor all veterans who have passed for whatever reason.  But while living veterans who have served in the armed forces sometime earlier in their lifetimes, veterans who have passed away after having served in a war, retired service personnel who have never seen war, and service people who are currently serving our country all deserve to be honored, the special day set aside for honoring them is November 11^th, also known as Veteran’s Day.

Memorial Day originated following the Civil War which claimed more lives than any other conflict in U.S. history and, as a result, prompted the establishment of our nation’s first national cemeteries after the war’s end in 1865.

Three years later, in May 1868, General John Logan, the leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month, saying, “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” The date was chosen because it was specifically not the anniversary of any particular battle of the Civil War.

Bereaved family members of this war’s fallen soldiers took to the idea, and they decorated the soldiers’ graves with flowers and flags, and they recited prayers. It’s for this reason that this tradition was originally known as Decoration Day.

On the first Decoration Day, General (and future President) James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and over 5,000 people came to decorate the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.

Though Decoration Day was originally chosen to honor only those soldiers lost between 1861 and 1865 in the Civil War, during the last half of the First World War, our nation found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate all American military personnel who died in any war.

After World War II ended in 1945, the term Decoration Day was widely replaced with Memorial Day, but it wasn’t until 1967 that federal law officially changed the title.

For decades, this somber occasion was observed strictly on the thirtieth of May, but in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May, in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees.  The change went into effect in 1971, making Memorial Day a federal holiday.

In December of 2000, Congress passed the “National Moment of Remembrance Act” which asks Americans, wherever in the world they may be at 3:00 p.m. local time on Memorial Day, to pause for a duration of one minute to remember those who have died in military service to the United States.

The idea for the National Moment of Remembrance came about in May 1996 after the White House Commission on Remembrance’s Director asked a group of children touring Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C. what Memorial Day means. They widely responded, “That’s the day the pools open!” A May, 2000 Gallup poll revealed that only 28% of Americans actually knew the true meaning of Memorial Day.

While the National Moment of Remembrance isn’t designed to replace traditional Memorial Day events, it’s meant to be a specific time designated to remember the legacy of the holiday and to honor the men and women of the United States who died in the pursuit of freedom and peace. In fact, this one-minute moment of remembrance is recognized by many large companies who require employees to work on Memorial Day.

As for the number of U.S. War casualties, there are more than 300,000 fallen soldiers buried at Arlington Cemetery which, on average, sees nearly 30 burials there each day. During the Civil War, approximately 625,000 American servicemen lost their lives. The Union lost almost 365,000 troops, and the Confederacy lost nearly 260,000, with more than half of these deaths caused by disease.  In World War I, 116,516 American servicepeople died, with more than half of these succumbing to disease.  In World War II, 405,399 American servicepeople died in action.  In the Korean War, 36,574 American servicepeople died in action.  In the Vietnam Conflict, 58,209 American servicepeople died in action.  In the Gulf War, we lost 294 service members.  In the Iraq War, 4,497 American service members died.  During the War in Afghanistan, 2,216 service members died.

(These numbers do not reflect the thousands of American service personnel killed in actions prior to the Civil War such as the American Revolution, numerous Indian Wars, the War of 1812, or other operations, battles, or conflicts throughout the world.)

In total, there are more than 1,354,654 American service personnel who lost their lives while serving our country and protecting our freedoms.  THAT is the reason we have Memorial Day.

To those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, as well as their families, we thank you!  We remember you!  We salute you!

Happy Throwback Thursday, friends!  Today the Wayback Bus is taking is taking us to two significant stops…

Our first stop on the look backward is 1927.  Ninety-seven years ago this week, aviator Charles Lindbergh flew out of Roosevelt Field in New York in his attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  He landed in Paris, France, making history with his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, in the first successful non-stop New York to Paris flight!

Born in 1902, Lindbergh started flying at the age of 20 and just three years later, he toured the country as a stunt flyer in his World War I surplus biplane.  In 1924, he joined the Army Air Service flying school and graduated as a first lieutenant at the top of his class. By 1926, he pioneered the route between St. Louis and Chicago as an airmail pilot, and was a highly regarded aviator.

Three years prior to Lindbergh’s first flight, an American pilot made history flying the first transatlantic flight in a hydroplane flown from New York to England.  This flight included fuel stops in Newfoundland, the Azores Islands, and Lisbon.

This leap in aviation history prompted French businessman Raymond Orteig to offer $25,000 to the first person to fly nonstop from Paris to New York or vice versa. While later that year, an aviation duo made history for the first nonstop transatlantic flight between Newfoundland and Ireland, the New York – Paris attempt would be nearly twice that number of miles and was too risky to attempt.

By 1926, with no aviators up for attempting the flight, Orteig renewed his offer. Aircraft technology had, by then, advanced so that some thought it might be an attainable goal.  Some of the world’s top pilots, including the famous Antarctic explorer Richard Byrd, accepted the challenge… and so did Charles Lindbergh.

The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce sponsored Lindbergh’s flight, and a single-engine aircraft dubbed The Spirit of St. Louis was built to his specifications. Spare fuel tanks were included, and the wing span was increased to 46 feet to accommodate the additional weight. Because the primary fuel tank was placed in front of the cockpit so it would not explode in the event of a crash, a periscope had to be added for Lindbergh to see. In order to keep extra weight off, everything that was not essential was omitted. This meant that Lindbergh sat on a wicker stool and he had no radio, gas gauges, lights for night-flying, navigation equipment, or even a parachute!

On May 12, 1927, Lindbergh flew the aircraft for the first time from the factory in San Diego where it was built to New York.  This flight went on record as the fastest transcontinental flight. After a week’s worth of inclement weather, the early morning of May 20, 1927 saw clear skies and Lindbergh hurried to Roosevelt Field on Long Island.

Even though six men had already died attempting the flight he was about to take, at 7:52 AM, Lindbergh and The Spirit of St. Louis started their journey.  The plane was so heavy with fuel, it scarcely cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway. Four hours into the flight, Lindbergh was exhausted, so he and flew a mere 10 feet above the ocean to keep his mind clear. By dusk, the he turned right off the coast of Newfoundland started across the Atlantic.  A couple of hours after midnight, he passed the halfway mark.  Soon after dawn, he entered a dense fog, and Lindbergh had difficulty staying awake.  He held his eyelids open with his fingers and even hallucinated that ghosts were passing through the cockpit.

Twenty-four hours after he started, he felt more alert and spotted fishing boats in the water. Close to four hours after that, he spotted the coast of Ireland. Despite the only rudimentary navigation he had available, he was ahead of schedule and only three miles off course. He soon passed England and was on his way to France.

At the Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris, thousands of people had gathered to welcome Lindbergh and watch him make history.  At 10:22 PM local time, he made a perfect landing in the air field. The crowd went wild and Lindbergh was an instant international celebrity.  President Calvin Coolidge dispatched a warship to bring “Lucky Lindy” home where he was given a ticker-tape parade in New York and presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

So, that bit of 94-year-old history was perhaps a precursor to that would happen a mere 63 years later on the same date in 1990, when the Hubble Space Telescope transmitted its first photographs from space! 

And now, less than 100 years after Charles Lindbergh made aviation history, we’ve come so far that, for the right price, anyone can travel in space these days!  What a difference a century makes!