AFSA honors Memorial Day with service events Published May 19, 2015 By Dr. Robert Kane Air University Director of History MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- Memorial Day is May 25, and since city, state and federal government offices, as well as other businesses, are closed that day, many Americans use the resulting three-day weekend to gather with neighbors, friends and family for backyard barbecues. Others will use the time off for a long weekend vacation or to attend weekend sports events. Still for others, it is the beginning of so-called "101 critical days of summer." However, Memorial Day is far more than a day off. It is a special day for Americans to remember in a special way the more than 1.3 million American servicemen and women who have died while serving in the armed forces of the United States since 1774, the start of the American Revolution. To help celebrate Memorial Day in the Alabama River Region, members of the Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Sergeants Association will provide two opportunities for the local community to participate in Memorial Day events. On May 23, a bus will depart from the 42nd Air Base Wing headquarters building on Maxwell at 7:30 a.m. to take community members to the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo, Alabama. The program includes opening statements about Memorial Day and the placement of 3,500 miniature flags on gravesites of the veterans buried in the cemetery. The bus will leave to return to Maxwell at noon. For more information or to participate, call 416-6798. Master Sgt. Jonathan Wilson, president of the local AFSA chapter, stated, "What better way to get in the right mindset for Memorial Day than honoring thousands who have donned our nation's cloth. This is a great opportunity to teach our new Airmen and families what it means to be a member in the profession of arms." On Memorial Day itself, a bus will depart Gunter, building 832, at 7:45 a.m. to take participants to the Bill Nichols Veterans Administration Home in Alexander City, Alabama. They will escort approximately 100 veterans, along with their family members, to a ceremony in the courtyard. Immediately following the ceremony, AFSA will sponsor an ice cream social, where participants will be able to serve and mingle with these veterans. The bus returns to Gunter at noon. For more information or to participate, call 416-2593. "This event allows us to do something special for those that came before us. Some of the veterans here do not have family members to visit them," he said. "Both events are open to the entire Maxwell-Gunter community on a first-come, first-serve basis." The attire for the Alabama National Cemetery event is Airman Battle Uniform for military and casual clothes for civilians. The attire for the Bill Nichols Veterans Home is service dress for military and casual clothes for civilians. The idea of a "Memorial Day" began during the Civil War when several communities in both the North and in the South decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers. After the war ended, increasingly more communities held similar ceremonies to remember and honor the more than 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who died in that war. Activities for the "Decoration Day" observance, as it was called until the mid-1880s, when "Memorial Day" began to be used, included speeches by veterans, politicians and ministers to remember lost friends, relatives and comrades, a means to make sense of their sacrifices. People also placed flowers and flags on the gravesites. By 1890, most states held special observances on May 30 to remember and commemorate the dead of America's costliest and most divisive conflict. In 1967, the federal government officially made the name of the observance "Memorial Day." On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which made the fourth Monday in May Memorial Day. On Memorial Day, many communities across the country will host parades with marching bands and units from the armed services. The U.S. flag is flown at half-mast from dawn to noon and then raised to full-staff for the rest of the day. Thousands of Americans will visit military cemeteries to place flowers and small flags on the gravesites of whose who made the ultimate sacrifice. John F. Kennedy once said, "A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers." How will you spend Memorial Day this year?