--- title: Memorial Day Should Be About Forgetting description: We need to move beyond the brutality of history, and that's where backyard barbecues come in as a building block of national morale. canonical: https://time.com/109728/memorial-day-should-be-about-forgetting/ author: Gregory Rodriguez article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-25T04:01:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T08:52:52.645Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Memorial Day Should Be About Forgetting og:description: We need to move beyond the brutality of history, and that's where backyard barbecues come in as a building block of national morale. og:url: https://time.com/109728/memorial-day-should-be-about-forgetting/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt92a1bcb5855b2ccf/698690b63bc999e8b81a39e4/73071104.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5422 og:image:height: 3050 og:image:alt: 73071104 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Memorial Day Should Be About Forgetting twitter:description: We need to move beyond the brutality of history, and that's where backyard barbecues come in as a building block of national morale. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt92a1bcb5855b2ccf/698690b63bc999e8b81a39e4/73071104.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Memorial Day Should Be About Forgetting > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=0e87b203-c357-443a-9665-2e222e6b1404&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME Explains Memorial Day [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Explains Memorial Day](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tWXcaFmN.m3u8) (2:29)  _Published 2014-05-22. Here’s everything you need to know about Memorial Day, the holiday originally observed to remember fallen soldiers from the Civil War._ by [Gregory Rodriguez](https://time.com/author/gregory-rodriguez/) ## Gregory Rodriguez May 25, 2014 4:01 AM UTC Here’s everything you need to know about Memorial Day, the holiday originally observed to remember fallen soldiers from the Civil War. by [Gregory Rodriguez](https://time.com/author/gregory-rodriguez/) ## Gregory Rodriguez May 25, 2014 4:01 AM UTC Memorial Day is one of America’s most confusing holidays. Depending on the celebrant, it can be a day of grief, glory—or backyard barbecues. It’s not a bad thing to have such disparate takes on a day of remembrance. And don’t worry: You’re not a bad person if you choose to sit back and enjoy your day off. But sometimes it pays to think about why we get the day off in the first place and ponder the mysterious forces that bind hot dogs, tears, and flags all together. Decoration Day, as the holiday was once known, arose in the years after the Civil War as a way to grieve for the 750,000 soldiers who had perished over four bloody years. Families who stifled their mourning during wartime sought public ways to pay tribute to the fallen in peacetime. Understandably, graves become a focus for the bereaved, and mourners took flowers to cemeteries to decorate them. This practice first received semi-official sanction in 1868 when General John Alexander Logan, the head of a large fraternal organization of Union veterans, designated a day each year “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.” Southerners didn’t take too kindly to this initial effort, but by 1890 all the Northern states had recognized the holiday. This emphasis on the Northern dead wasn’t just born of sectional spite. The ultimate sacrifice made by hundreds of thousands of men to preserve the Union elevated the value of the nation to its citizens. Lacking the traditional building blocks of other nations (such as centuries of shared history on the land or ancient blood ties), the U.S. had long had a difficult time forging a unifying national culture. The idealistic nature of American nationhood left people hungry for a more flesh-and-blood connection to their country. It was the Union dead who first seemed to prove that America was more than a mere idea. “Before the War our patriotism was a firework, a salute, a serenade for holidays and summer evenings,” wrote essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1864\. “Now the deaths of thousands and the determination of millions of men and women show that it is real.” James Russell Lowell, the first editor of _The Atlantic Monthly_, thought that the enormity of the Union Army’s sacrifice also proved something to condescending Europeans. “Till after our Civil War,” he wrote in 1869, “it never seemed to enter the head of any foreigner, especially of any Englishman, that an American had what could be called a country, except as a place to eat, sleep, and trade in. Then it seemed to strike them suddenly. ‘By Jove, you know, fellahs don’t fight like that for a shop-till!’” The holiday overcame sectional tensions around World War I, when Southerners—though many still revered the heroes of their Lost Cause—rejoined the fold, and the day’s scope was expanded to honor Americans who died fighting in any U.S war. Commemorating the fallen is one way that governments rebuild the morale of nations that have suffered great loss. Even in victory, losses are real to families, and depictions of a triumphant nation thankful for its heroes can be comforting to a populace trying to move forward. The U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial—which was unveiled in 1954 in Arlington, Virginia, and shows five Marines and a Navy corpsman hoisting the American flag during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II—is the quintessential depiction of perseverance and a classic commemoration of war. But in the aftermath of no war do grief and glory intersect seamlessly. The needs of the state, bereaved families, and surviving veterans do not always coincide. In his book _Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century_, Indiana University historian John Bodnar describes the main sides of the late 1970s and early 1980s controversy over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. On the one side, he writes, were national leaders, many patriotic veterans, and private citizens “who saw in the monument a device that would foster national unity and patriotism.” On the other were veterans who fought in Vietnam, people who cared about them, and bereaved families who were less interested in the memorial being a display of unity or patriotism than an expression of empathy for the soldiers who suffered and died. Empathy is paramount to the monument that was ultimately erected. The memorial—with the names of the fallen etched into black granite walls that sink into the National Mall—wound up symbolizing, in Bodnar’s words, “the human pain and sorrow of war rather than the valor and glory of warriors and nations.” The annual Memorial Day holiday doesn’t elicit the same depth of emotional intensity as the planning of a permanent, national war memorial. But the interplay between grief and glory is ongoing. The politics and public reaction to war is ever-changing, and families who have lost soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan are likely to observe the day differently than somebody who has not had a relative in uniform since the Korean War. Memorial Day also has divided the public in another way: between those who chose to observe the holiday and those who saw it as a chance for leisure time. While there’s no way to accurately estimate the size of each group, historians Richard P. Harmond and Thomas J. Curran suggest it’s likely that the latter always has been larger than the former. And that gap is probably growing wider. Rather than harangue about some presumed decline of patriotism or gratitude in America, I’d suggest that backyard barbecues are also fundamental to Memorial Day’s building of national morale. Yes, it is absolutely critical to remember the fallen and the wars they died in. But, as the 19th-century French scholar Ernest Renan argued, forgetting is “an essential factor in the creation of a nation.” We also need to move beyond old divisions and the brutality of history. That, my fellow Americans, is where the hot dogs come in. _Gregory Rodriguez is the founder and publisher of Zócalo Public Square._ _This piece originally appeared at_ [_Zocalo Public Square_](http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/)_._ ## Transcript Memorial Day is upon us. And as tradition goes it's a time for Americans to remember the brave men and women who fought and died for our country. It's also a time to enjoy a three- day weekend and finally break out that special edition, humongous, it's not spring until the first barbecue, UFO shaped, charcoal grill. But did you know two cities with the same name but in different states both claim to be the birthplace of this national holiday? Here's what you need to know about the history and traditions of Memorial Day. While the birthplace of the holiday might be contested we know the origin of Memorial Day came from the end of the U. S. Civil War. After the war, soldiers in the north and south decorated the graves of comrades who died, at least 600, 000 by the time fighting stopped. The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs says one of the first instances of Americans honoring the fallen took place in Columbus, Mississippi April 25th, 1866. A group of women decorated the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers, but Americans in at least five other cities, including Columbus, Georgia, all seem to think they were first. A writer at the New York Times says the claims of the two Columbuses, Mississippi and Georgia, are the most nuanced and intertwined, with the misprinted newspaper date being the culprit in the who- did- it- first feud. But he also mentions a forgotten event in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865, that might have triggered it all. Black workmen properly reburied the Union dead that were found there. And on May 1st, a cemetery dedication was held, attended by thousands of freed Blacks who marched in procession around the track. Despite all that, Waterloo, New York was named the birthplace of Memorial Day in 1966 because of a ceremony for fallen soldiers that took place a century prior. In 1868, Major General John A Logan declared Decoration Day, the precursor to Memorial Day, to be observed May 30th, because that's when flowers would be in bloom nationwide. But the wounds from the Civil War lingered and Americans in the Confederate states consider Memorial Day a celebration for fallen Union soldiers. So they commemorated the dead at their own discretion. May 30th became a day to honor all American soldiers who gave their lives in combat when U. S. soldiers returned from World War I. Memorial Day became a national holiday in 1971, and since then Americans have celebrated the fallen military men and women through tribute, celebration, parades, and more, on the last Monday in May. Thanks for watching. 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