As I was working in my yard on Memorial Day morning, May 31, (the political one) two young teenagers stopped and asked me, “Why is your flag only halfway and your neighbor’s flag is all the way up?”

I then asked them if they knew what Memorial Day was. Their answers: “We don’t have to go to school, my parents take flowers to the cemetery, it’s got something to do with war, we sometimes go camping on a long weekend.”

I then told them what Memorial Day was. It was originally on May 30 before the government changed it in 1971. That it was something that came after the Civil War ended, how it was observed before 1971. They then told me that they “didn’t know any of that stuff,” thanked me and then went down the road.

To say that I was shocked would not be the truth. I have grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have no idea why Memorial Day is celebrated. I think that the schools, with the help of the VFW and the American Legion, could enlighten what could be the next greatest generation as to what the flag and Memorial Day are really about.

I am a former member of the AMVET Post Trinity 7-45 and served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1953.

Roland Carville, Lisbon

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