The following is the speech given by George Burk at the American Legion Post 24 Memorial Day addrress:

My earliest memories of Memorial Day were of my grandparents talking about decorating graves in the small cemetery in Walcott, Iowa. I didn’t know why they did this until a few years later, when I was told about ‘Decoration Day‘. They told me the day was primarily to honor those who died in service and veterans; first they made sure the graves of all the veterans they had known were decorated; then, like many others, they placed flowers on the graves of family members. This was usually done on the weekend before Memorial Day. That was also the time of the year that several relatives would make their annual visit. Most of them arrived a day or so before Memorial Day, and would leave a day or so after. On Memorial Day the family would gather in Davenport’s Fejervary Park for a picnic dinner. After eating, the adults would talk about grownup things, the children would walk through the zoo or play games. Almost everyone would spend some time watching and laughing at the antics of the monkeys on Monkey Island. I’m sure the monkeys were laughing back at us.

Shortly after my ninth birthday, the world was changed forever. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and Memorial Day took on a whole new meaning. From the little town of Walcott, Iowa, population approximately 300, more than 50 answered their country’s call. Melvin Roesh, our next door neighbor and a boyhood idol, enlisted in the US Navy, and became a gunner in a torpedo bomber. Melvin was KIA in the South Pacific when his plane was shot down.

We moved from Walcott to Durant, Iowa in 1944, and I took a paper route. In 1946 I began delivering papers to a WW2 Veteran named Lemoyne Schneckcloth, recently medically discharged from the US Army. I admired Lemoyne, partly because he was a war hero, partly because he owned a creampuff 1938 Ford convertible that he would let me drive on occasion. Lemoyne had been ‘stitched’ by machinegun fire, hit in his thigh, pelvis, chest, neck, and face. The wounds caused loss of some body functions and some facial disfigurement. When his wife could not accept his condition and left him, he tried to drown his depression with alcohol. When the alcohol quit working, Lemoyne drove his Ford full speed into a bridge abutment. To me, Lemoyne’s death should be classed as ‘died of wounds’, and added to the other 291,557 American deaths from WW2.

Between V-J Day, Sept 2, 1945 and my enlistment in the US Navy on December 7, 1949, I attended funerals of veterans from both World Wars, as well as the funeral of my cousin’s fiancée, PO2 Karl Heinrich, US Coast Guard. Karl apparently fell overboard and drowned. Several local WW2 veterans, dressed in their Navy or Coast Guard uniforms, took part in the military rites. I was surprised that so many local citizens had served in the Navy and Coast Guard during WW2. The graves of Karl and Lemoyne are among many in the Durant Cemetery decorated every Memorial Day.

My first ship assignment in the US Navy was the USS Leyte CV-32, an Essex class aircraft carrier. In May 1950 I boarded the Leyte in Naples, Italy. After several port calls in the Mediterranean sea, we were back in Naples on June 25, 1950, when we received word that hostilities had began in Korea. The Leyte immediately steamed to

Beirut, Lebanon where we picked up a battalion of Marines. The Marines offloaded in Suda Bay, Crete to wait for a troop ship to Korea; Leyte left the Mediterranean and steamed full speed to the Naval shipyard in Portsmouth, VA to have some work on the flight deck; from there through the Panama Canal to San Diego, CA; to Honolulu, Hawaii; to Yokouska, Japan; to Sasebo, Japan. The Leyte joined Task Force 77 in the Korean combat zone in October, 1950. On October 13th, Ensign Jesse L. Brown, the US Navy’s first black aviator, flew his first combat mission. ENS Brown was KIA on December 4, 1950; his plane was hit by ground fire while flying close air support for US Marines in the Chosin Reservoir. I will remember ENS Brown on this memorial day, just as I have remembered him for the past 58 years. I will also remember others who gave their lives during the Korean War. Virgil Puck and I were born just two hours apart November 16, 1932. We were close play buddies until my family moved to Durant, IA in 1944. In November 1951 I received a letter from home with the sad news that PFC Virgil Puck, US Army, was KIA on October 10, 1951. SGT LeRoy Frick, USMC, a schoolmate from Durant, Iowa, was KIA August 20, 1952. Another classmate, A1c Jerry Kuelper, USAF lost his life in a automobile accident just before the ceasefire in July 1953.

As the years passed more service friends and veterans departed this life. Each Memorial Day the numbers of the departed grew. The WW1 and WW2 vets were passing away, and the Korean War was largely forgotten, except by those who had served, the next of kin of the 33,741 who were killed, and families of the wounded, or missing. Unfortunately, the wars did not stop with Korea. Our country has been involved in many conflicts since 1953.

US involvement in Vietnam began with Military Advice and Assistance Groups (MAAG) in the late 1950s. About the time I left the Navy in July of 1961, President John F. Kennedy’s decision to send over 2,000 military advisers to South Vietnam marked the beginning of the longest period of U.S. Military Forces in hostile action in the history of the American republic. There was no formal declaration of war from which to date US involvement, but things were heating up before October 1962, when I moved my family to Davenport, IA. The US Military role gradually changed from a military advisor role in 1961 to direct combat in 1965. The number of US troops in Vietnam steadily increased, peaking at 543,400 in April 1969. Active US involvement ended on April 30, 1975 when the last of the military personnel were evacuated from the US Embassy in Siagon. Of the 2.7 million US Service personnel who served in Vietnam, more than 58,000 died or remain missing, another 300,000 were wounded. Among the 36 KIA from Davenport were SGT David Ditch, US Army, a close friend of my brother Charles; and HN Jesse Pena, US Navy, son of a next door neighbor. My younger brother, AMM3 John Mutum, US Navy, who had completed three tours in Vietnam, died in a automobile accident in San Diego, CA on December 9, 1967. He is buried in the National Cemetery on Rock Island Arsenal, Rock Island IL. That National Cemetery has a Confederate Soldiers section, containing the graves of 1950 Confederate Soldiers. The Confederate flag flies over this section 365 days of the year. A Confederate flag is placed on each grave on Memorial Day.

Since Vietnam, US Forces have been attacked or engaged in combat in many parts of the globe, resulting in deaths to US Service personnel. Between October 12 and November 2, 1983, forty-five US service members were killed and 358 wounded in Operation Urgent Fury on the island of Grenada. On October 23, 1983, 241 US Service personnel were killed in a terrorist attack in Beirut, Lebanon. Between December 20, 1989 and January 3, 1990, 24 US troops were killed and 325 wounded during Operation Just Cause in Panama. In the First Gulf War to liberate Kuwait, 148 US Service personnel (including 11 females) were KIA, 121 died from other causes, and 458 were wounded. On October 12, 2000, the USS Cole DDG-67 was attacked while docked in Yemen, killing 17 sailors (including 2 females) and injuring 39 more. On September 11, 2001 Muslim terrorists hijacked four aircraft from various locations in the US. Two of the hijacked planes were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, one plane crashed in Pennsylvania. The fourth plane was flown into the Pentagon, killing 56 military and 67 civilians. A total of 124 more were injured. These 9-11 figures do not include the occupants of the aircraft.

Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001. The US military casualties as of May 9, 2009 were 454 KIA, 224 non-hostile deaths, and 2820 wounded. Operation Iraqi Freedom started March 19, 2003; as of May 9, 2009 the casualties included 3440 KIA, 846 non-hostile deaths, and 31245 wounded. This all happened during my lifetime.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, began as a day to honor the Civil War dead. After the Civil war many people in the North and South decorated graves of fallen soldiers with flowers. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of "Decoration Day". Columbus, MS was a hospital town during the Civil War. Many of the casualties from the Battle of Shiloh were brought there, and thousands were buried in the town's Friendship Cemetery. One of the hospitals was located at the still-operating Annunciation Catholic Church. The decision of a group of church ladies to decorate both Union and Confederate graves with flowers on April 25, 1866 is often credited as the founding of Memorial Day. More evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War; a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead"

According to Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic race track in Charleston, SC. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died in captivity. The freed slaves re-interred the dead Union soldiers from the mass grave to individual graves, fenced in the graveyard and built an entry arch declaring it a Union graveyard. This was a daring action for them to take in the South shortly after the North's victory. On May 30, 1868, the freed slaves returned to the graveyard with flowers they had picked from the countryside and decorated the individual gravesites, thereby creating the first Decoration Day. A parade by thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers from the area was followed by patriotic singing and a picnic.

Just off Route 322 in Centre County, PA, near the town limits of Boalsburg, a plain little marker by the side of the road reads: "Boalsburg. An American Village - Birthplace of Memorial Day." What about that boast? On a pleasant Sunday in October, 1864, in the little community burial ground behind the village, a pretty teen-age girl named Emma Hunter, and her friend, Sophie Keller, chose to gather some garden flowers and to place them on the grave of her father, Dr. Reuben Hunter, a surgeon in the Union Army, who died only a short while before. At the same time an older woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Meyer, was strewing flowers on the grave of her son Amos, a Private in the Union Army, who had fallen in the battle at Gettysburg. And so they met, kneeling figures at nearby graves, a young girl, accompanied by a friend, honoring her officer father, and a young mother paying respects to her enlisted-man son, each with a basket of flowers which she had picked with loving hands. As they got to talking, the mother proudly told the girl what a fine young man her son had been, how he had dropped his farm duties and enlisted in the Union Army at the outbreak of the war, and how bravely he had fought. The daughter respectfully took a few of her flowers and placed them on the son's grave. The mother in turn laid some of her freshly cut blooms on the father's grave. These two women had found a common bond as they knelt together in that little burial ground. They did not realize at the time that their meeting had any particular significance, it just seemed to lighten their burdens by sharing them. The story goes that before the two women left each other that Sunday in October, 1864, they had agreed to meet on a designated day the following year. They would honor not only their own two loved ones, but others who might have no one to kneel at their lonely graves. During the weeks and months that followed the two women discussed their plan with friends and neighbors, and all who heard it were inspired. On the appointed day - July 4, 1865 - what had been planned as a little informal meeting of two women turned into a community service. All of Boalsburg were gathered there. A clergymen, Dr. George Hall, preached a sermon, and every grave in the little cemetery was decorated with flowers and flags; not a single one was neglected.

In the Spring of 1866, Henry C. Welles, a druggist in the village of Waterloo, NY, suggested that the patriots who had died in the Civil War should be honored by decorating their graves. General John B. Murray, Seneca County Clerk, embraced the idea and a committee was formed to plan a day devoted to honoring the Civil War dead. Townspeople made wreaths, crosses and bouquets for each veteran's grave. The village was decorated with flags at half mast. On May 5 of that year, a processional was held to the town's cemeteries, led by veterans. The town observed this day of remembrance on May 5 of the following year as well. The friendship between General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A. Logan, who helped bring attention to the event nationwide, likely was a factor in the holiday's growth.

Logan had been the principal speaker in a citywide memorial observation on April 29, 1866, at a cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois, an event that likely gave him the idea to make it a national holiday. On May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans' organization, Logan declared in General Order No. 11 that:

The 30th of May, 1868, is 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. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

May 30 was selected as no major battles had taken place on that day during the Civil War.

General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery on that first Decoration Day, after which 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery. Today, Memorial Day is celebrated at Arlington National Cemetery with a ceremony in which a small American flag is placed on each grave. Also, it is customary for the president or vice-president to give a speech honoring the contributions of the dead and lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Each year about 5,000 people attend the ceremony, about the same as the first time in 1868

The first state to officially recognize Decoration Day as a holiday was New York in 1873. In 1882 the name was changed to ‘Memorial Day’, by 1890 Memorial Day was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war).

In 1966, the federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon Johnson, declared Waterloo, N.Y., the official birthplace of Memorial Day. They chose Waterloo—which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—because the town had made Decoration Day an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags. In 1971 the US Congress passed the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays. Memorial Day it is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

The tradition of wearing red poppies on Memorial Day started with a poem written by John McCrae, a Canadian medical officer serving in Flanders during World War I. Looking out over the cemetery, where he had just buried a close friend, he was awed by the thousands of red poppies waving in the breeze. After penning the poem, he ripped it out of his notebook and threw it away. Fortunately, another soldier picked it up. This is the poem, commemorating the deaths of thousands of young men who died in Flanders during the grueling battles there.

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.

In late 1915, inspired by McCrae’s poem, a young lady named 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.

She then came up with the idea of wearing red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Today members of veteran’s groups and auxiliaries solicit donations for poppies in the days leading up to Memorial Day; the funds are used to help needy veterans and their families.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50's, on the Thursday before Memorial Day, soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a luminary candle on each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye's Heights. And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed in Dec 2000, which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of Remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps."

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return of Memorial Day to May 30th, the original day of observance. Let us set aside that one day of the year for the nation to remember, to thank, and to honor those who have given their all in service to their country. Ask your Senators and Representatives to support legislation to return Memorial Day to May 30th.

Remember that Memorial Day is not about sales, picnics, beer, and cookouts. Enjoy the day, for those who died would want you to. Laugh, play, eat, and shop if you want to. But take a moment to remember and pray. May we honor all who have given their lives, and their families who were left behind. May God grant them peace. Let us pray.

ALMIGHTY God, we gather here with grateful hearts for the military men and women of our country, past and present, who contributed so much for the liberties we now enjoy. We pray especially for those men and women who have laid down their lives in the service of our country. Grant to them and to their families your mercy and the light of your presence. And give, O Lord, to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will. In your name we pray. Amen.

Thank you for your attention.