Heart of Memorial Day is decorating graves of war dead

Memorial Day started out as Decoration Day, when the graves of the Civil War dead were decorated with flowers in the spring.

One of the first commemorations was April 25, 1866, when women in Columbus, Mississippi, went to decorate the graves of the Confederate soldiers who fell at Shiloh. There were Union graves nearby.

They had been the enemy. Their graves were bare.

The women were disturbed by the neglected soldiers who fell so far from their homes. They placed some of their flowers on the Union graves.

Death makes all equal, but the fallen deserve more attention because of the sacrifice they made. Decorate the grave of your relative, but don't forgot the soldier whose family may no longer be around to keep alive their memory.

Last Memorial Day we asked that people help remember those killed in Vietnam. The Virtual Vietnam Wall contains the names of 206 Vietnam War dead from St. Clair and Madison counties, but 43 of their photos were missing.

Many answered the call to find images of their faces. Instead of 43 images missing, now there are only 15. Four of them are new names that were missing from the wall.

We hope that the fallen can be remembered. We hope that you can take time from the mattress sales and barbecues to see if you have an old high school yearbook that maybe will help put their images with their names.

Their faces can decorate the place of remembrance. Through memory, we can keep them with us and offer a small tribute for their sacrifice.

Help find photos of these Vietnam War dead

Click on the name to upload their photo to VVMF.org

This story was originally published May 24, 2018 at 5:04 PM with the headline "Heart of Memorial Day is decorating graves of war dead."