The Oklahoma Bar Journal May 2025

F rom the P resident

Decoration Day remained an acknowledgment of the Civil War’s fallen, both blue and gray, until after World War I, when the day became dedicated to all our American military who died fight ing in any war. It was not until 1968 that the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an act of Congress that amended the federal holiday provisions of the United States Code to establish the observance of certain holidays on Mondays, declared Memorial Day to be a national holiday. I lived through the transition of Decoration Day into Memorial Day but was not really touched by it until the first Skiatook High School graduate came home from Vietnam for burial with full mil itary honors. You see, I was born after World War II had ended and just at the end of what was then called the Korean Conflict. War had not touched me – until the first death of someone I really did not know but who was a part of my small community. It was then that Memorial Day took on the signifi cance and meaning my Boy Scout leaders had tried to explain to me. Our association has a true desire to be supportive of the mil itary veterans of Oklahoma. Our Military Assistance Committee, led by former OBA Board of Governors member S. Shea Bracken, is active and always looking for ways to provide assistance, not just to OBA members who are ex-military but to any ex-military who might need our help. But all this sup port is directed, rightfully, to the living, who are also celebrated on Veterans Day. With Memorial Day coming on the cusp of the end of school and summer vacations, it is so easy for us to forget the

Decoration Day. What is undisputed is that Decoration Day grew out of the aftermath of our Civil War. On May 5, 1868, just three years after the conclusion of the Civil War, Gen. John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, proclaimed in General Order 11, “The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

(continued from page 4) But even then, I did not hear much about the history of Decoration Day. The tradition of remembering and honoring the military dead can be traced back to ancient times. Over 24 centuries ago, an Athenian leader, Pericles, wrote of fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War: “Not only are they commemo rated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not in stone but in the hearts of men.” Here in the United States, there is a robust debate about which com munity can lay claim to the first

64 | MAY 2025

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL