Memorial Day in Plum City, Wisconsin

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day is a day of remembrance for military people who have died in service to our Nation. The actual beginning or the memorial is not clear, with over two dozen cities and towns claiming to be the birthplace of Memorial Day.

Memorial Day was first officially observed on May 30, 1868. Flowers were placed on graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. By 1890, Memorial Day was recognized by all of the northern states. The southern states refused to participate, having their own commemoration for Civil War Veterans. After the First World War, the South began to honor Americans who died in any war, along with the North.

Memorial Day is now celebrated in almost every state on the last Monday in May. Memorial Day was passed as a National Holiday, by Congress, in 1971.

The traditional observance of Memorial Day has diminished over the years. Many Americans have forgotten the significance of the day, commemorating the loss of American life in preserving the Independence and freedoms that we enjoy today.

Many Americans welcome Memorial Day, as an extra day off, a three day weekend. They spend the day with friends and family, enjoying a picnic or barbecue. These gatherings are excellent ways to spend the day, so I'm not criticizing.

There are towns and cities across the United States that have parades, with marching bands, music, and veterans carrying the flags. Attending one of these city celebrations is an excellent memorial for those who have been willing to die for our liberties.

Plum City, Wisconsin, is a small town in the countryside. The nearest big city is St. Paul, Minnesota, on the other side of the state line.

My father was a veteran of World War II. He joined the Army Air Force young, patriotically presenting himself as older than he was to join the war effort. He fought in what was known as the European Theater and served in occupied Italy, after the war was over.

Like many veterans of the Big War, my dad did not talk about it a lot. We grew up knowing that he had seen some very ugly things in war time and did not want to relive the traumatic time in his life. Occasionally some bits and pieces would come out. He occasionally would remember walking down a Berlin street with his best friend, when a sniper bullet shot and killed his friend dead on the street.

He remembered driving an Army Jeep in the mountains of Italy at night with the lights off, getting separated from his troops, and nearly driving right into an enemy camp. One time he broke into tears while remembering the loss of life at the beaches of Normandy, when his troops got there too late to help.

It was after my father's death, at the age of 75, that my brother found a diary that my father had kept as a young man. My brother is a pastor, and spoke at my father's funeral. He spoke of the finding of the diary and what my father wrote of joining the war effort. My father graduated from high school and joined the Army Air Force at the age of seventeen. He rode his bicycle from Centralia, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri to enlist. This was approximately a 70 mile bike ride.

After enlisting and going through basic training, he was on board a ship to Africa. One night he was on watch when he was shocked to see something speed by the ship and realized it was a torpedo. The ship made it to the shores of Africa and the troops landed. This was the end of his diary, as he stopped writing of his war experiences.

My parents retired in Plum City, Wisconsin. He used to tell me about the really beautiful Memorial Day Service that they held in town, but I never traveled there for Memorial Day while he was alive.

Just a few months before he died, he told my mother that he wanted to be buried at the Ono Cemetery, which is the cemetery by the small Methodist Church in Ono. Ono is just a few miles from Plum City, where my parents lived.

My father died in March, but was not buried until May, because of the frozen ground conditions. The VFW Post of the area gave him a military send off, with horns playing and rifles firing in a gun salute.

Memorial Day came not long after his burial, and was my first experience with a Memorial Day in Plum City. Memorial Day in Plum city is a small, but beautiful commemoration of the soldiers buried there.

The high school band gets into a bus and travels to the different cemeteries in the area. My nephew was in the band, making it even more poignant. At each cemetery the high school band lines up and plays military music, including a song for each branch of the military. After the band performs, a roll call is read, announcing the name of every soldier and sailor buried in the cemetery. There are military people from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam represented. After the names are read off and taps are played, little children from the town are escorted by military veterans to place flags on each grave site where a veteran is buried.

After the graveside ceremonies are completed, the people of the town proceed to what is known as "The Pond" in Plum City. "The Pond" is a small park in the center of town. A pond, with fish in it, is the centerpiece of the park. People surround the pond. The busload of high school band members get off the bus and perform their musical memorial to the veterans one more time.

Memorial Day in Plum City, is just what I think Memorial Day should be. The day is somber, yet celebratory that the veterans have not died in vain. The liberties they fought to defend are still intact. America is still the greatest country in the world.

In Memory
Norman Walter Frederick Bude
1926 - 2001