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THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

What is Memorial Day and how has it evolved from its Civil War origins?

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Memorial Day

is a U.S. holiday that’s supposed to be about mourning the nation’s fallen service members, but it’s come to anchor the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and discounts on anything from mattresses to lawn mowers.

Iraq War veteran Edmundo Eugenio Martinez Jr. said the day has lost so much meaning that many Americans “conflate and mix up Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, July Fourth.” Social media posts pay tribute to “everyone” who has served, when Memorial Day is about those who died.

For him, it’s about honoring 17 U.S. service members he knew who lost their lives.

“I was either there when they died or they were soldiers of mine, buddies of mine,” said Martinez, 48, an Army veteran who lives in Katy, Texas, west of Houston. “Some of them lost the battle after the war.”

Here is a look at the holiday and how it has evolved:

When is Memorial Day?

It falls on the last Monday of May. This year, it’s on May 26.

Why is Memorial Day celebrated?

It’s a day of reflection and remembrance of those who died while serving in the U.S. military, according to the Congressional Research Service. The holiday is observed in part by the National Moment of Remembrance, which encourages all Americans to pause at 3 p.m. for a moment of silence.

TOP PHOTO: A member of the Army visits Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Va., Monday, May 27, 2024, on Memorial Day. BOTTOM PHOTO: Retired Navy veteran Randy Melton places American flags at the gravesites of veterans in the Field of Honor on Tuesday in preparation for the Memorial Day weekend at Owensboro Memorial Gardens in Owensboro, Ky., on May 20, 2025. Melton is a member of all of the veterans organizations in town and volunteers every year to place the flags. SEE M e M orial D ay PAGE 3

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What are the origins of Memorial Day?

The holiday’s origins can be traced to the American Civil War, which killed more than 600,000 service members — both Union and Confederate — between 1861 and 1865.

The first national observance of what was then called Decoration Day occurred on May 30, 1868, after an organization of Union veterans called for decorating war graves with flowers, which were in bloom.

Yet Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, traced its first observance to October 1864, according to the Library of Congress. And women in some Confederate states were decorating graves before the war’s end.

David Blight, a Yale history professor, points to May 1, 1865, when as many as 10,000 people, many of them Black, held a parade, heard speeches and dedicated the graves of Union dead in Charleston, South Carolina.

A total of 267 Union troops had died at a Confederate prison and were buried in a mass grave. After the war, members of Black churches buried them in individual graves.

When did Memorial Day become a source of contention?

As early as 1869, The New York Times wrote that the holiday could become “sacrilegious” and no longer “sacred” if it focused more on pomp, dinners and oratory.

In an 1871 Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery abolitionist Frederick Douglass said he feared Americans were forgetting the Civil War’s impetus: enslavement.

“We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers,” Douglass said.

roughly 180,000 Black men served in the Union Army, the holiday in many communities would essentially become “white Memorial Day,” especially after the rise of the Jim Crow South, Railton told the AP in 2023.

In the 1880s, then-President Grover Cleveland was said to have spent the holiday going fishing — and “people were appalled,” Matthew Dennis, an emeritus history professor at the University of Oregon, previously told the AP.

But when the Indianapolis 500 held its inaugural race on May 30, 1911, a report from the AP made no mention of the holiday — or any controversy.

Dennis said Memorial Day’s potency M e M orial D ay

The practice was already widespread. Waterloo, New York, began a formal observance on May 5, 1866, and was later proclaimed to be the holiday’s birthplace.

“What happened in Charleston does have the right to claim to be first, if that matters,” Blight told The Associated Press in 2011.

His concerns were well-founded, said Ben Railton, a professor of English and American studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. Although

How has Memorial Day changed?

-Krista Meinert, of Racine, Wisc., looks at a photo of her son, Marine Lance Corporal Jacob Alexander Meinert, 20, that she attached to his gravestone in ection 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Va., Monday, May 27, 2024, on Memorial Day.

A final walk at Arlington’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — For the last two years, Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Jay has been dutifully guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

Rain or shine, snow or sleet, for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Jay and the other guards on watch duty serve as both protectors and commemorators of a national tribute to America’s unidentified and missing service members.

ultimate price for their country.

With Jay’s final walk scheduled for June 2, this Memorial Day will hold special significance for him as the cemetery prepares for a string of events honoring those who paid the

“It’s meant a lot,” Jay, 38, told The Associated Press. “I’m going to try to make sure it doesn’t define me, but it was definitely a defining moment in my career.”

The Associated Press was given rare access to the changing of the guard at the sunrise hour,

as the cemetery was still closed to the public. Jay, who is from Indianapolis, volunteered for the position after serving in the Tennesseebased 101st Airborne Division, which specializes in air assault operations and is known for its record in World War II. He trained for

SEE arlington’s tomb PAGE 5

Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Jay patrols the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Thursday, May 15, 2025, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

almost 18 months for the guard duty.

“The training is unlike anything I’ve ever done in my career so far,” he said. “It’s more than the physical aspect of any other Army school you might think of.”

The guards, also known as sentinels for their watchful duty, train even on their offdays, walking on the mat for two hours straight to build up muscular endurance.

But that isn’t the only endurance required of the sentinels.

“It’s a lot of mental ability,” Jay said. “You have to be locked in for a nine-minute guard change, but then also your 30-minute walk. So, what you’re thinking about kind of varies between soldier to soldier.”

The sentinels spend half an hour walking the mat in the warmer months and an hour during colder months. They perform a dramatic changing of the guard at the grave site that visitors to the Washington area flock to see, marching 21 steps down the mat, turning and facing east for 21 seconds, then north for 21 seconds and then back down the mat for 21 more, repeating the process.

The number refers to the high military honor of the 21-gun salute, which can be heard booming throughout the cemetery and surrounding areas during military funerals on the grounds.

There are currently three unidentified U.S. service members buried in the tomb: one from World War I, one from World War II and one from the Korean War.

With Memorial Day approaching, the cemetery — which is run by the U.S. Army and has 3 to 4 million visitors annually — will hold a number of events to honor fallen service members. Just before Memorial Day weekend, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment places American flags at the grave sites of more than 260,000 service members buried at the cemetery — an event known as “Flags In.” On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend,

the public is invited to leave flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for Flowers of Remembrance Day.

“Memorial Day still retains the purpose that it had back in 1868 during that first official observance here in Arlington,” said Allison Finkelstein, the senior historian of Arlington National Cemetery. “It is the day to remember and honor our war dead.”

There have been 733 tomb guards since 1958. On average, seven to nine tomb guards work every day.

“The honor of guarding them isn’t just about the Three Unknowns, it’s about everybody that lays here in the cemetery and what they gave in the pursuit of freedom,” Jay said.

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diminished somewhat with the addition of Armistice Day, which marked World War I’s end on Nov. 11, 1918. Armistice Day became a national holiday by 1938 and was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.

In 1971, Congress changed Memorial Day from every May 30 to the last Monday in May. Dennis said the creation of the three-day weekend recognized that Memorial Day had long been transformed into a more generic remembrance of the dead, as well as a day of leisure.

Just a year later, Time Magazine wrote that the holiday had become “a three-day nationwide hootenanny that seems to have lost much of its original purpose.”

Why is memorial Day tied to sales and travel?

The holiday also evolved alongside baseball and the automobile, the fiveday work week and summer vacation, according to the 2002 book “A History of Memorial Day: Unity, Discord and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

In the mid-20th century, a small number of businesses began to open defiantly on the holiday.

Once the holiday moved to Monday, “the traditional barriers against doing business began to crumble,” authors Richard Harmond and Thomas Curran wrote.

These days, Memorial Day sales and traveling are deeply woven into the nation’s muscle memory.

But Martinez, the Iraq War veteran in Texas, is posting photos and stories on social media about the service members he knows who died.

Even in the 19th century, grave ceremonies were followed by leisure activities such as picnicking and foot races, Dennis said.

“I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer and tell you not to have your hotdogs and your burgers. But give them at least a couple minutes,” he said. “Give them some silence. Say a little prayer. Give them a nod. There’s a bunch of families out there that don’t have loved ones.” memorial D ay

Words honoring those who paid the ultimate price

These Memorial Day quotes deserve to be shared to remind us of our soldiers’ daily sacrifices, past and present, and also to help honor those who inspired such powerful words. Simply put, these quotes are to say thank you.

▶ “Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.” —

Franklin D. Roosevelt

▶ “The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men.” — Minot J. Savage

▶ “Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world. A veteran does not have that problem.” — Ronald Reagan

▶ “Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it. It flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it.” — Unknown

▶ “For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue.” — James A. Garfield

▶ “This is the day we pay homage to all those who didn’t come home. This is not Veterans Day, it’s not a celebration, it is a day of solemn contemplation over the cost of freedom.” — Tamra Bolton

▶ “As we set today aside to honor and thank our veterans, let us be mindful that we should do this every day of the year and not just one.” — Beth Pennington

▶ “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God such men lived.” — Gen. George S. Patton

▶ “And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.” — Lee Greenwood

▶ “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes.” — Maya Angelou

▶ “We don’t know them all, but we owe them all.” — Unknown

▶ “We sleep peaceably in our beds

at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf.” —

George Orwell

▶ “The willingness of America’s veterans to sacrifice for our country has earned them our lasting gratitude.” —

Jeff Miller

▶ “Think about the past and consider the sacrifices men and women in the military have made for us.” — Gary G. Wetzel

▶ “America without her soldiers would be like God without His angels.”

— Claudia Pemberton

▶ “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” — Nathan Hale

▶ “The patriot’s blood is the seed of freedom’s tree.” — Thomas Campbell

▶ “Here men endured that a nation might live.” —Herbert Hoover

▶ “In the aftermath, we are because they were.” — RJ Heller

▶ “Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” — John Adams

▶ “May we never forget freedom isn’t free.” — Unknown

▶ “There is nothing nobler than risking your life for your country.” — Nick Lampson

▶ “May we never forget our fallen comrades. Freedom isn’t free.” — Sgt. Maj. Bill Paxton

▶ “On this day, take time to remember those who have fallen. But on every day after, do more; put the freedoms they died for to greater and nobler uses.” — Richelle E. Goodrich

▶ “Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.” — Robert A. Heinlein

▶ “Their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.” — Daniel Webster

▶ “The patriot’s blood is the seed of freedom’s tree.” — Thomas Campbell

Veterans pause to remember a fallen comrade at Arlington

While we’re bellyaching about prices keep the Robert Davenports in mind

Robert Malcolm Davenport’s teen’s years were spent growing up in Manteca.

As a teen he walked Yosemite Avenue that then doubled as Highway 120 jammed every weekend with people freely traveling to the Sierra or San Francisco.

Most of the time Davenport walked on Yosemite Avenue sidewalks was to partake of a free public education at Manteca High.

Other times it was likely to do things that teens were free to do back then whether it was catching a movie at the El Rey that is now being converted into The Veranda, enjoy a milk shake at The Creamery, or grab a burger and fries with friends at The Patio.

The odds are overwhelming you’ve never heard of or even knew Davenport.

But he is one of more than 50 million men and women that you and I owe the fact we can freely travel about, enjoy a free public education, and are free to shop, worship, and express outage as we are today.

Davenport served America. And the price he paid for that honor as a 23-yearold assigned to the Airborne’s 503rd Infantry in the early 1970s was his life.

The sergeant had been in the war zone of Vietnam’s highlands four months when his squad was running point near Monkey Hill on a trail shifting through heavy jungle foliage.

It is when he suddenly detected motion in the foliage. He motioned to his radio operator the direction of the movement but due to imminent contact did not have sufficient time to alert the entire squad.

With complete disregard for his own personnel safety, Davenport moved forward on the right flank in an effort to engage the enemy before the point team could be brought under devastating hostile fire in the attack zone.

The enemy responded, shooting him in the head. By doing so, he forced the enemy to expose their position and saved the rest of his squad from either certain death or devastating wounds.

Davenport and others who never returned home to mark a Veterans’ Day as well as those who did are the reason why 340 million of us are able to bellyache about the high price of consumer goods that are more plentiful here than anywhere else on the face of the earth, challenge and rip into the government at will without being thrown into the slammer, travel about as freely as we can without getting government permission, to basically worship as we please, and — if we so chose — opt not to participate in mass demonstrations of “national unity” as is the case in North Korea.

Even if you share the opinions of the jackals roaming the bowels of the Internet whether they are on the extreme right, left, or somewhere in between that America is a hot mess you are indebted to men and women like Davenport.

To paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, democracies are like sausages. We might

like what they are but it is better not to see them being made.

It’s a truth we often forget.

Democracy by its very nature is a mess. But it is the mess we must endure.

There is a reason why one of the greatest debates in this land for more than 270 years hasn’t been about forcing people to stay in this country but whether people can come into this country.

It’s a point lost on those who think every immigrant is looking to live on the public dole or to prey on America by joining the criminal underbelly of society.

They are drawn to America by the promise of a better life of freedom and the ability to have at least a shot at approving their lot in life and that of their family.

None of that is a possible without the concept of democracy which, like any other thing in life, cannot be 100 percent pure given there are 340 million of us in this country and 8.1 billion people on earth.

And democracy, which has never been the friend of tyrants, kings, bullies, and those with super nova egos, can’t exist let alone grow unless it is secured.

And it is not secured by posting on the Internet or published words. It is not secured in stirring sermons or teachers inspiring inquisitive minds.

While all of that helps people see the possibilities, dream of a better life for themselves and a better world for everyone, as well as question the status quo the cold-hard truth is the freedoms we either cherish or simply take for granted would not exist unless they are secured by a

standing military.

If America is a hot mess then the world is quicksand pulling mankind down toward and even more hellish mess.

That’s because there are those out there who want to impose their will on others whether they are individuals, of a different faith or ethnicity, or simply disagree with them. That has always been the case. It is the case. It is likely to be the case until the end of time.

It is what men and women like Robert Malcolm Davenport guard against.

As was the case in Vietnam and in most wars, the clear and present danger is always on the battlefield when bullets are flying and rarely in the events that led up to skirmishes or war.

The men and women who serve this country are who we rely on in split second situations or prolonged responses to provocation to keep the flickering candle of democracy — clearly an aberration in the march of time — burning.

Take a moment — even if it is only on Memorial Day — to reflect and give thanks for those among us who have served and those who never made it back to enjoy what for many is just a paid holiday from work or a day off from school.

The Robert Malcolm Davenports deserve our undying gratitude for the sacrifices they have made.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com