Douglas MacArthur told West Point cadets, May 1962:
"The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice.
In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image ...
No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind."
Memorial Day in America began during the Civil War when southern women scattered spring flowers on graves of both northern Union and southern Confederate soldiers,
In the War Between the States, over a half-million died.
Many places claimed to have held the original Memorial Day, such as:
-Warrenton, Virginia;
-Columbus, Georgia;
-Savannah, Georgia;
-Gettysburg, Pennsylvania;
-Boalsburg, Pennsylvania;
-Waterloo, New York.
One such place was Charleston, South Carolina, where a mass grave was uncovered of 257 Union soldiers who had died in a prison camp.
On May 1, 1865, former slaves organized a parade, led by 2,800 singing Black children, and reburied the soldiers with honor as an act of reparation and gratitude for their ultimate sacrifice which gave slaves freedom.
In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander of the Civil War veterans' organization "The Grand Army of the Republic," called for a Decoration Day to be observed annually on May 30.
American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred
President James Garfield's only executive order was in 1881 where he gave government workers May 30 off so they could decorate the graves of those who died in the Civil War.
During World War I, a Canadian Expeditionary gunner and medical officer, John McCrae, fought in the Second Battle of Ypres near Flanders, Belgium.
Describing the battle as a "nightmare," as the enemy made one of the first chlorine gas attacks, John McCrae wrote:
"For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ...
And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way."
Finding one of his friends killed, John McCrae helped bury him along with the other dead in a field.
Noticing the field covered with poppy flowers, he composed the famous Memorial Day poem, "In Flanders Fields":
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
Notable individuals who fought in World War I include:
-Sergeant Alvin York, took out 35 machine guns and captured 132 enemy;
-John J. Pershing, General of the Armies;
-Douglas MacArthur, Brigadier General;
-George S. Patton, tank commander;
-Leonard Wood, future Army Chief of Staff;
-Harry S Truman, artillery officer and future 33rd President;
-Eddie Rickenbacker, commander of 94th Aero Squadron;
-Quentin Roosevelt, shot down, son of President Theodore Roosevelt;
-Charles Whittlesey, commander of the "Lost Battalion" behind lines;
-Frank Luke -"balloon buster";
-Irving Berlin, composer of "God Bless America";
-Edouard Izac, naval office captured on U-Boat, who escaped;
-Henry Johnson of the "Harlem Hellfighters";
-Dan Daly, Marine Sergeant charged and captured machine gun nests;
-Ernest Hemingway, author of A Farewell to Arms;
-J.R.R. Tolken, British author of The Lord of the Rings;
-C.S. Lewis, British author of The Chronicles of Narnia.
American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred
Also, Orval William Epperson, the grandfather of the writer of this article. He was born on a rugged Ozark farm near Anderson, Missouri, fought in France, assigned to the 338th Machine Gun Battalion 88th Division.
His son, Orval Wilford "Billy" Epperson, served in World War II as a bombardier on a B17 Flying Fortress, 525th Squadron, 379 Bomb Group A.P.O. 550 (#0-768946).
23-year-old "Billy" flew from Camp Crowder in southwest Missouri, over his hometown of Neosho, headed for Kimbolton, England. He wrote a Mother's Day note to his mom, tied it with a handkerchief to a small weight and dropped in from the plane. A neighbor got it and brought to his mother.
That was the closest they would ever be again, as Billy was shot down by the Nazis over the English Channel near Holland on July 9, 1944.
Miracles in American History (Vol. 3: Episodes 21-30)
"The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice.
In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image ...
No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind."
Memorial Day in America began during the Civil War when southern women scattered spring flowers on graves of both northern Union and southern Confederate soldiers,
In the War Between the States, over a half-million died.
Many places claimed to have held the original Memorial Day, such as:
-Warrenton, Virginia;
-Columbus, Georgia;
-Savannah, Georgia;
-Gettysburg, Pennsylvania;
-Boalsburg, Pennsylvania;
-Waterloo, New York.
One such place was Charleston, South Carolina, where a mass grave was uncovered of 257 Union soldiers who had died in a prison camp.
On May 1, 1865, former slaves organized a parade, led by 2,800 singing Black children, and reburied the soldiers with honor as an act of reparation and gratitude for their ultimate sacrifice which gave slaves freedom.
In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander of the Civil War veterans' organization "The Grand Army of the Republic," called for a Decoration Day to be observed annually on May 30.
American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred
President James Garfield's only executive order was in 1881 where he gave government workers May 30 off so they could decorate the graves of those who died in the Civil War.
During World War I, a Canadian Expeditionary gunner and medical officer, John McCrae, fought in the Second Battle of Ypres near Flanders, Belgium.
Describing the battle as a "nightmare," as the enemy made one of the first chlorine gas attacks, John McCrae wrote:
"For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ...
And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way."
Finding one of his friends killed, John McCrae helped bury him along with the other dead in a field.
Noticing the field covered with poppy flowers, he composed the famous Memorial Day poem, "In Flanders Fields":
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
Notable individuals who fought in World War I include:
-Sergeant Alvin York, took out 35 machine guns and captured 132 enemy;
-John J. Pershing, General of the Armies;
-Douglas MacArthur, Brigadier General;
-George S. Patton, tank commander;
-Leonard Wood, future Army Chief of Staff;
-Harry S Truman, artillery officer and future 33rd President;
-Eddie Rickenbacker, commander of 94th Aero Squadron;
-Quentin Roosevelt, shot down, son of President Theodore Roosevelt;
-Charles Whittlesey, commander of the "Lost Battalion" behind lines;
-Frank Luke -"balloon buster";
-Irving Berlin, composer of "God Bless America";
-Edouard Izac, naval office captured on U-Boat, who escaped;
-Henry Johnson of the "Harlem Hellfighters";
-Dan Daly, Marine Sergeant charged and captured machine gun nests;
-Ernest Hemingway, author of A Farewell to Arms;
-J.R.R. Tolken, British author of The Lord of the Rings;
-C.S. Lewis, British author of The Chronicles of Narnia.
American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred
Also, Orval William Epperson, the grandfather of the writer of this article. He was born on a rugged Ozark farm near Anderson, Missouri, fought in France, assigned to the 338th Machine Gun Battalion 88th Division.
His son, Orval Wilford "Billy" Epperson, served in World War II as a bombardier on a B17 Flying Fortress, 525th Squadron, 379 Bomb Group A.P.O. 550 (#0-768946).
23-year-old "Billy" flew from Camp Crowder in southwest Missouri, over his hometown of Neosho, headed for Kimbolton, England. He wrote a Mother's Day note to his mom, tied it with a handkerchief to a small weight and dropped in from the plane. A neighbor got it and brought to his mother.
That was the closest they would ever be again, as Billy was shot down by the Nazis over the English Channel near Holland on July 9, 1944.
Miracles in American History (Vol. 3: Episodes 21-30)