Memorial Day began as Decoration Day after the Civil War. In 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union Army veterans, established it as a time for honoring those who died in war by going to their graves and decorating them with flowers. Memorial Day isn’t just a day for honoring veterans of war. Living veterans of wars had the fortune to be able to go home. Memorial Day is for taking a moment to appreciate all those who were not so fortunate.

There is no arguing that war is an abominable thing. Within the horror of war though, there remains the fact that the people who did the fighting were people, they were human beings. Wars are filled with stories of humanity coming to the fore and people treating one another with mercy and compassion, people making sacrifices to save the others that they serve with. Wars accelerate the pace of those moments in life on which the destinies of entire generations of people are hinged. How many family trees are still growing today because someone’s grandfather did something extraordinary to save someone else? And how many people were never born because of the sacrifice a soldier made?

Regardless of your feelings on war, we can all take a moment to appreciate the humanity of the people involved and honor the memory of those who died. I originally had a quote to lead this post and took it down. To me it’s not about glorifying a flag or a country or a patch of ground. After you strip everything away, it’s about the people. It’s about commemorating the sacrifices they made when all they had were one another.