Memorial Day, an American holiday observed on the last Monday of May to honor the American men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated after the Civil War in the late 1860s and became a federal holiday in 1971.
In 2019, my brother, sister-in-law, T and I took a trip to Europe. We each chose a place we would like to visit. T chose Normandy, specifically the D-Day beaches. We had our own tour guide who was an expert on the D-Day invasion. She personalized the information with stories of her grandparents who lived in Normandy and survived this period of time in WWII. Carole asked us if there was anything specific we would like to see and we requested the flag lowering at the National American Cemetery and Memorial. That was the last stop on our tour.
Being in a national cemetery brings a wave of emotion; the sight of those headstones is such a moving experience. Rows and rows of identical headstones are set in straight lines, the height and distance between them are uniform, evoking military precision, like rows of soldiers in formation. The reasons that they are there is just as moving as the sight of the headstones. Tears were unstoppable while "Taps" played and the American flag lowered.
Such serenity created to urge the living to live in peace.
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La Cambe, the German cemetery in Normandy. Quite a contrast to its American counterpart. |
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