National Military Appreciation Month

 

Since today is Memorial Day, I decided to publish a part of a post that I only released to the subscribers at the beginning of this month.

May is National Military Appreciation Month. Senator John McCain and Representative Duncan Hunter presented the idea to Congress in 1999. This is comprised of six different holidays celebrating our armed forces:

• Loyalty Day (previously called Americanization Day) is on May 1st, and was established in 1921. This holiday was formed to replace International Worker’s Day. President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared this a national holiday in 1955, but it wasn’t confirmed until 1958 because of the conflicting dates of May Day and Child Health Day. This holiday is celebrated with community parades.
• Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) takes place from the 7th to the 13th in 2017. This holiday, established in 1985, celebrates all of the American workers. 
• V-E Day celebrates the Allied victory over both Italy and Germany. Victory in Europe Day was first celebrated on May 8, 1945 although Germany actually surrendered the day before. This holiday is mainly celebrated in Europe, but cities like Chicago and New York City held festivities in 1945. It was also President Truman’s sixty-first birthday and his most enjoyable one as well.
• Military Spouse Appreciation Day is on May 12th. This holiday was announced on April 17, 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, and was first celebrated on May 23rd. Caspar Weinberger, U.S. Secretary of State at the time, declared that this holiday would take place the Friday before Mother’s Day.
• Armed Forces Week spans from the second Saturday of May to the third Saturday of May (fourth if the month begins on a Sunday). Armed Forces Day is in this week.
• Always on the third Saturday of May, America’s Armed Forces Day is on May 20, 2017 (other countries also have an Armed Forces Day at different times throughout the year). This holiday was announced on August 31, 1949; and was first celebrated on May 20, 1950. The longest-running parade for this day was held in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
• Memorial Day is celebrated on every last Monday of May (May 29, 2017). This holiday began as Decoration Day in 1868 because freed slaves (and eventually Civil War veterans) would decorate the graves of soldiers who died in the American Civil War; and would hold a service singing hymns, giving readings, and distributing flowers. Union General John A. Logan was the official founder of this holiday. Although many cities claimed to have decorated the first grave, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared that the first grave was decorated in Waterloo, New York. The name was changed to Memorial Day in 1892, but it was not commonly called Memorial Day until after World War II. The name was officially changed in 1967, and it became a national holiday in 1971.

I hope that you spend some time learning the sacrifices that our military gave today or thanking a soldier for his or her duty. Peace is something that we take for granted; we should realize that it has its costs. I will not close this article with a verse this week, but instead with a poem: “In Flanders Field” by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. He was a Canadian physician and soldier who wrote this poem during World War I after his friend died in the Battle of Ypres at Belgium, and it is usually associated with Memorial Day.

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.