It has been called the unofficial start of summer. Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday of May. It was originally called Decoration Day, created in the wake of the Civil War, when citizens in communities across the U.S. decorated the graves of the war dead. In 1868, General John Logan, the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic - a veterans group for Union soldiers - declared the first official Decoration Day would be held on May 30 of that year to honor those who died in the Civil War. As you might expect, southern sympathizers refused to recognize the May 30 date and celebrated other days for Memorial Days. After WWI, Memorial Day was expanded to honor all war dead and the southern deference waned. For years, the May 30 date was honored with parades and solemn ceremonies. In 1971, the U.S. Congress moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May to ensure a three-day weekend.

In recent years, Memorial Day has lost much of its original intent. That may have to do with its move in 1971 to always be on a Monday to make it a long weekend holiday. It may be because three days off from work has people making plans to do something with their leisure time beyond ceremonies in cemeteries. Backyard cookouts, the Indy 500, and Memorial Day sales all have us looking beyond the honoring of the war dead to other things. However, the biggest reason for the waning of feelings for the original intent behind Memorial Day is our lack of connection to people we have actually known who have died on a battlefield fighting for their country. Ask anyone who has recently lost a son or daughter, a spouse or a good friend in Afghanistan or Iraq. They will tell you that Memorial Day takes on special significance, but they are mourning in the midst of the party - and they are in the minority.

When the Civil War ended, there were two very significant feelings shared by all people. First, the sovereignty of the U.S.A. was threatened. The southern states had seceded and formed a new country. That this country would be forever severed into two factions was more than just an academic discussion, it was a reality shared by all people - both north and south. For the generation that lived through this, those events forever shaped their thinking. It impacted the way they viewed war dead. Those soldiers who were killed in action really did fight for their country, because if they did not fight, there would not be a United States as it exists today. The republic depended upon their sacrifice and those who lived through the threat of the loss of country felt this. They would seem horribly ungrateful to not honor the war dead on Memorial Day. Secondly, the death toll of the war was so large that there was no one that did not know someone who was killed in action. Memorial Day was a very personal holiday. Subsequent wars have rekindled that kind of national sentiment as well. However, as a general population, we have lost our connection with the war dead. Our nation has been threatened by terrorist attacks, but not to the scale of those other wars. Terrorist actions capture the collective attention of our nation for a relatively short time and then we move on like nothing really happened. Most recently, the Boston Marathon bombings and the manhunt that proceeded afterwards left four dead casualties and 50 people injured. Yet, most of us - I will include myself in this - would be hard pressed to actually remember how many people were killed in the melee let alone their names, what they looked like, whether they were young or old, male or female. This is an event that horrified us less than 40 days ago! How would you expect us to remember someone who gave their life for our freedom 10, 40, 70, or 150 years ago.

This is a different article for me. It is much more introspective than my normal advice column on marketing. If you were looking for some business advice this week, you will have to wait until next week. We are coming up on Memorial Day, a day we set aside our work in order to focus on something bigger than the job we do. It's a national holiday to honor those who have died fighting for our freedom. This Memorial Day, I am going to treat the day differently. I am going to connect with the past and think about the impact it has had on my current situation. I would encourage you, in your own way, to do the same. "Freedom is not free" is engraved in the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. This Memorial Day, I intend to solemnly think about those words and the many who lie in flag marked graves who silently testify to the truth of that statement.

 Memorial Day History, www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html

Photo by Jorfer