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"dead from both sides who gave their lives to defend their country during the Civil War..."

The country those who fought on the confederate side were defending was the Confederate States of America and not the United States.

Those who fought on the confederate side were defending their rights to own black people as chattel property.

I will always think of Indiana on Memorial Day because of the fact that I have spent most of mine in Linton, Indiana. My dad went to the Indy 500 a lot and we would visit my grandmother Joanna Struckmeyer Sutphin. She loved this holiday. It's taken me sometime to understand why she loved this holiday so much, but it was probably because she loved my grandfather Theron so much. He served in WWII and there's was a classic small town love story, a wedding shortly before he was shipped overseas and a daughter who was born while he served in Germany.

We always went to his grave first. We would talk about him which was good because I never knew him. He died before I was born and this was when would learn things about him we didn't probably know before. This was also when I would learn about the infinite possibilities in which one could arrange silk flowers.

My grandmother always bought new ones for his headstone. There were two vases on either side of the marker. She would take out the ones she had placed last year and replace them with the new. We would then walk over to my great grandparents headstone. She would take the flowers she had just removed and put them at her parents headstone and she'd say a little prayer. Then the flowers she had removed from her parents head stone (2 years old now) she would take over to my grandfather's parents and remove the three year old flowers and replace them with the two year old flowers. By now you can get how the rest of my day would go with her. We would run into other distant relatives while out decorating the graves of our many generations. And we would go until we had hit everyone she could remember or at least where they were buried.

I have to say looking back that was some fine recycling she was doing and although the plants and flowers were fake, it was a fairly 'green' tradition we had.

My grandmother passed away four years ago and I miss her terribly. I haven't been to Linton since her funeral and I wonder if anyone put 'fresh' flowers on her grave today. I hope somebody did, and one of these days, I'm going to go down there and to memorialize her and my grandfather I will probably buy some brightly colored silk flowers and recycle the rest the best I can remember.

ursa--

Those who fought fought because they were called to serve, and did so outo fsense of duty and honor, not necessarily because they shared the beliefs of those for whom they fought.

And that pattern unfortunately continues all over the globe.

Dusty...those are such great sentiments. I wonder if this current generation has such traditions. I too was taught great respect for those past...veterans and non, and too have vivid memories traipsing through cemeteries hearing stories of kin I never knew any other way.
Thanks for sharing, and bringing back my own memories.
Ursa's missing the point...

ursa,

Today's US soldier is to "big oil" as a Confederate soldier was to slavery.

the civil war was not about slavery - it was about taxes. lincoln was racist, as well.

Thank you, Maxwell and Dusty!

adding to Elizabeth's post. . .

and about states' rights. Slavery was a small part of the initial cause of the civil war.