USTRANSCOM staff historian explains Memorial Day and more

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. – Peg Nigra, U.S. Transportation Command staff historian, was reminded of the meaning of Memorial Day last year when she talked to a woman handing out poppies made by veterans at the local food store.

“On a Saturday I was at the grocery store and I gave a dollar to a woman handing out paper poppies,” Nigra said.  “I do this every year and think nothing of it, usually.  This time though, I asked myself, ‘What did I really know about Memorial Day and why the poppy?’” 

Nigra did some research and found out that Memorial Day didn’t start after World War I, as many think, and it wasn’t always the last Monday in May. 

“On 30 May 1868, President James Garfield gave a speech at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the first official Decoration Day,” Nigra said. “People who attended the ceremony that day decorated the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers with flowers.

“By World War I, every state had a Decoration Day as a state holiday,” Nigra continued.  “And it became an American tradition to decorate the graves of soldiers with flags or flowers.  In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which declared Memorial Day a federal holiday and moved its observance to the last Monday in May.  The law took effect in 1971.”

As for the poppy, the wild poppy seed can lay dormant for years and the flower grows best where there is no competing foliage.  The newly turned earth of battlefields and cemeteries in France during World War I provided the perfect conditions for proliferation of the flower. 

“In May 1915, Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae used the image of that bright red flower he saw covering the graves of soldiers in his poem ‘In Flanders Fields,’” Nigra said.  

The poems starts, “In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row.”

According to Nigra, McCrae wrote that poem to vent his anguish over the death of a friend in the Second Battle of Ypres in which over 100,000 died, were wounded, or missing. 

“Because of that poem, the poppy has come to symbolize the sacrifice made by those who died not just in World War I but in all wars since then,” Nigra said. 

In 1920, the American Legion Auxiliary adopted the poppy as its memorial flower.  Disabled veterans in hospitals make the paper poppies.  All donations from the poppies have gone to support veteran relief efforts.

The poem ends with, “If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.”

“Americans haven’t broken faith,” Nigra said.  “We honor the fallen with flags, flowers, and vows, never to forget.

“And when you have put the last flag and last flower on a grave,” Nigra added, “remember to thank the survivors--the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, coast guardsmen, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sons, and daughters--for their sacrifices.”

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