It’s the unofficial start of the summer season, a long weekend, a day for sales, cookouts, friends and having fun. But Memorial Day has a far greater meaning than all the frivolity which surrounds it.

Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember those who died in war, came about in the aftermath of the carnage of the Civil War. Never before had Americans experienced such a terrible loss, and observances sprung up organically, both North and South, as widows and others placed wreaths and flags on the graves of those they had lost as a way to show that while they may be dead, they will never be forgotten.

Fittingly enough, the observance was originally called Decoration Day. In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order designating May 30 as “a day set aside 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 no...