On this Memorial Day in cemeteries throughout the United States, flags will be placed on graves to honor the men and women who gave up their young lives in defense of our liberties and those that returned, to live out their lives in peace.
President Abraham Lincoln specified in 1863 a mandate: that no veteran shall have an unmarked grave. (Today we have veterans in “unmarked graves” to mean its consigned to oblivion.) For some unfounded reason, our Congress, in the last 27 years, saw fit to reduce this honor of a headstone with one Public Law after another until it didn’t allow veterans from 1776 through 1990 to have replacement of their missing, worn/illegible headstones with a new military headstone that would state “Here lies a member of our Armed Forces who has preserved our freedom, which you/we are enjoying today.”
We thank them for their sacrifices by placing a flag on the grave and saluting them as a sign of respect of remembering what that soldier did for us.
—Herbert W. Schierhorst