I just wanted to make a note that it's not flag day, not Veterans Day, not WW2 day...
Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May.So, it's a bit like killed in action day, regardless of what war or military engagement, from the Revolutionary war of freedom from the English tyrant government with it's indentured servitude where every twenty years or so there was a new generation of young men were giving the British throne hell because the Stuarts weren't on the throne, until Cromwell got fed up and shipped them off to Barbados (history, full of interesting stuff)
and the Indian Wars in Connecticutt, Pequot-Mohegan War and King Philip's War.... the French and Indian War, Battles of Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, the War of 1812, the Mexican War (over Texas) and the battle of the Alamo! The invasion of Pancho Villa, the Civil War, Spanish American War over Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Phillipines, (they sunk our battleship!)
and WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Nicaragua, Libya, Beiruit, Iraq, Afghanistan, Dubai, and I'm forgetting others that aren't coming to mind. Of course I am, because history wasn't taught very well in my grade school and high school, and though I've been doing little else for the past 15 years, there's a diminishing return on learning vs retaining memory.
But I wanted to remember the Alamo (been there!) and so many Indian wars, and the various damn wars that have keep the country entrenched in a cycle of battles all over the planet. I think the USA has been in a war everywhere except Greenland.
But I wanted to remember the Alamo (been there!) and so many Indian wars, and the various damn wars that have keep the country entrenched in a cycle of battles all over the planet. I think the USA has been in a war everywhere except Greenland.
It's been a pet project of mine to thoroughly complete my family tree, and part of that was fascination with how many people in my ancestry were in the revolutionary war, the Indian wars, the Battle of Bunker Hill, were freezing in Valley Forge, slogging through Europe in WW2, etc.
Memorial Day means something else when it's a look at your own family tree and who did what, where, and when. I hope you enjoy your family tree discoveries like I do.
That's a wonderful sentiment and an excellent introduction to every history class ever. "If I told you that your great uncle died in a war or your great-great-great grandfather almost didn't come back from battle in who-knows-where, wouldn't you want to know just what was going on that caused them to be willing to put their life on the line, to go halfway around the world to dodge bullets/ arrows/ cannon fire? Lets see if we can figure it out over the next semester."
ReplyDeleteNone of my teachers ever told me that...
I would love to teach history... I would start with family trees, which connects so much, and gets people interested in the learning of places, events, and why some things are important.
DeleteI love the way you stated it.
None of my teachers did either, and if I knew then what I know now? I would have been such a voracious reader of history
Oh, and i forgot that the Army spent a lot of time in Greenland setting up cold war forward deployed radar stations and portable nuke reactors, and retrieving bombers and airplanes that had to crash land there