Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May to honor those who died while serving in the U.S. military. Unlike Veterans Day which honors all military veterans, Memorial Day remembers those who gave their lives in the line of duty. 

Along with memorial services and parades another Memorial Day tradition is to place flags, flowers, or other decorative mementos on the graves of soldiers.

This tradition came about from the origin of Memorial Day, which was originally called Decoration Day. 

According to History.com, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to the countless fallen soldiers of the Civil War, which ended in 1856, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.

On May 5, 1868, Major General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Union Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance designated “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, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

Gradually, Decoration Day came to be known as Memorial Day and became a holiday in Washington D.C. in 1887.

While the day originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War, after World War I it grew to commemorate those who perished in that conflict, and of course today honors all fallen soldiers.  

It wasn’t until 1971 that it became a federal holiday, thanks to a law Congress had passed two and a half years earlier.

Looking back at this history, it feels as if this country is both young and old. While recent conflicts are still fresh in our minds, the long-ago Civil War is what made the country what it is today. 

And these graves are the markers of that time period. On this Memorial Day, we remember all service members who lost their lives.