Remember

Memorial Day, traditionally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembering those who have fallen in our nation’s service. During my high school years, I would play taps at local cemeteries on Memorial Day where special services included a color guard and a 21 gun salute to honor the fallen.

In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem:
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

On Memorial Day the flag is raised to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains until noon. It is then raised to full-staff for the remainder of the day.

The half-staff position remembers the more than one million men and women who gave their lives in service of their country. At noon their memory is raised by the living, who resolve not to let their sacrifice be in vain.

From http://www.militaryfactory.com/american_war_deaths.asp
“In its first 100 years of existence, over 683,000 Americans lost their lives, with the Civil War accounting for 623,026 of that total (91.2%). Comparatively, in the next 100 years, a further 626,000 Americans died through two World Wars and several more regional conflicts (World War 2 representing 65% of that total). “

The war among ourselves remains the most costly war America has ever fought.

The Bible records a stone that was placed as a war memorial, reminding the people that God had helped them defeat their enemies and to remain unified under His rule.

1 Samuel 17:12
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the Lord helped us.”
( Ebenezer means “stone of help”.)

Conflicts within nations, businesses, organizations, churches, families and marriages continue to be the most costly. Our nation needs to have a stone of remembrance that God has helped us and will be our deliverer when we are unified under His rule.

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