My first ancestor in America got land in Nebraska for serving in the GAR. Or laboring for them. My dad said he wasn't an actual soldier, but he must have done something useful. The useless people got land in Kansas.

Estimates for Paraguayan casualties in the war it fought in the mid 19th century versus Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, range from 7% to 60% of the total population, with higher percentages for males. There's probably some Genghiz Khan types there who are ancestors of >50% of Paraguayans today.

For the US, how and where is Memorail day observed? Is the CW substratum still there, or obscured by subsequent wars? How do you handle the CSA? Are things observed differently in different states?

It's not really observed so far as I've experienced. It's mostly the first day of summer.

I mean, I didn't work and I still got paid. So my employer observed it.

Memorail will deliver memos to everyone's desks via cars running on dedicated rail lines bored through the walls and floors of your office. The same cars will return bitcoin-loaded USB drives for payment.

As I mentioned in the other thread, our state Superintendent of Public Instruction celebrated by going to Little Bighorn to honor our fallen heroes at the Custer National Cemetery. Post CW then.

I would say that there are levels of public observance -- but imo it's not really any different from Veterans Day. Mass observance, though, takes the form of BBQs and a long weekend at the beach.

I suppose if I hadn't visited my dad's grave recently and were in the right state, I would have done so on Memorial Day. We did use to visit graves, but never limited to those killed in war or veterans.

7.1: Do they self-identify with the genocide or the extremely poor planning?

not really any different from Veterans Day
Meaning?

3: Barbecue, plus maybe some little flags. You'd be hard put to recognize the military implications.

10 I don't think the differences between the speeches that the President will give at Arlington for MD and VD respectively are material, or materially related to the origins of the holidays. Maybe I'm wrong about this: I'm usually busy eating BBQ and don't watch the speeches.

9 She's an elected Republican so probably both. Won on a platform of winking and nodding contempt for public education. Definitely both.

So the Memorial is not actually memorialized? Are there ceremonies in schools/churches? Laying of wreaths by public officials? Readings of lists of dead alumni? Moments of silence? Playings of the Last Post?

Public officials lay wreaths, yes.

I'm sure there are ceremonies in church, but after Sunday, I really don't feel called to do a whole new service the next day. Schools are closed.

seems like the bggest difference is Armistice Day not being a public holiday.

It is a federal holiday but schools usually go on. It's called Veterans Day.

I remember Eric Hobsbawm leading off some discussion of military deaths in the 20th century, something like: "According to American historians, who like to measure this sort of thing..."

And then he ate beans on toast.

When I was a kid, we would go put up flags all over town on Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, the 4th, and Flag Day.

US flags only?

Yes. It was just a line of U.S. flags down main street.

The Mossheimat Armistice had no flags on streets, but ceremonies had flags of at least some Allies. (Including the USSR, on one unfortunate occasion.)

3: I believe Memorial Day was an attempt to get Confederate sympathizers and everyone else to memorialize together on the same day, and make enmity disappear into a fuzzy white glow. Originally a lot of the celebrations in the North were specific to the US cause, and that was tamped down.

Then Veteran's Day came as a specific remembrance of WWI (Armistice Day). But by now it's more or less merged with Memorial Day in who or what, if anything, is being commemorated. The main practical difference now is very few Veteran's Day barbecues, because November.

When I was a kid we used to go up to Farmington to decorate the family graves. That's a fairly common practice. Otherwise it's mostly considered a generic day off and the unofficial beginning of summer. There's not much popular awareness of the origins of the holiday or its connection to the Civil War specifically.

Aren't there a lot of businesses that connect it to veterans at least? "We salute our veterans with this sale", that sort of junk.

Like Columbus Day sales that start with. "We love murderous Italians."

26: Sure, but that's a pretty low level of awareness. There's probably at least as much promotional material oriented around it as a summer barbecuing holiday.

Growing up I remember ceremonies in the local cemeteries and wreaths getting laid on graves. I probably only remember it because playing "Taps" is part of the tradition and I played the trumpet as a kid, though. These days personally my observance is just taking a day off work. No one would want me to dig up my trumpet and bring it anywhere.

For people who are interested, David Blight's chapter on Decoration Day in Race and Reunion is very, very good and has a long tail in the literature and the broader discourse.

When I was in high school band we always marched in the Memorial Day parade. The parade still exists -- but I don't think my current city has one.

When I was in high school band we always marched in the Memorial Day parade. The parade still exists -- but I don't think my current city has one.

I walked in a parade this Memorial Day, as I am technically a local dignitary. The high school marching band was unfortunatly not in great form, having missed a lot of practice due to covid. But they had a simple medley of patriotic songs that they played over and over again, and the effort was appreciated.

Then we all stood around the war memorial and there were some wreaths and a salute was fired and we were solemn for a bit.

I hope you didn't point out how badly they sucked.

It was pointed out to me.

Hopefully there was a float with a banner about it.

24: See Frederick Douglss's Decoration Day speech of 1871.

The essence and significance of our devotions here to-day are not to be found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in battle. If we met simply to show our sense of bravery, we should find enough on both sides to kindle admiration. In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier.

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.

Some asshole brought a treason flag to an observance yesterday at Natick, Massachusetts' Civil War memorial. People were and are pissed off about it.

"Confederate Memorial Day" is still a holiday in some states.

It is an official state holiday in Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina; while it is commemorated in Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee. It was also formerly recognized in Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia. For most states, the official date is or was April 26, when the last major Confederate field army surrendered at Bennett Place, North Carolina in 1865.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Memorial_Day

to memorialize together on the same day, and make enmity disappear into a fuzzy white rainbow glow

I don't suppose uniting against a common history of British oppression is an option?

In the United States, we commemorate Memorial Day by complaining that Democrats fail to pay the proper respect and observe Memorial Day weekend without golfing.

The Mossheimat Armistice had no flags on streets, but ceremonies had flags of at least some Allies. (Including the USSR, on one unfortunate occasion.)

One of the main streets in Downtown Pittsburgh is called Boulevard of the Allies, named for the WWI Allies. Some years back--I thought for some hundredth anniversary or another, but it predates that--they put up flags of all the Allies along it. That's a pretty uncommon thing to see in the US. I'm pretty sure it included a flag to represent China, and I'm almost certain they used the five color republican flag. Think that's the only time I've ever seen it flown.

Not necessarily specifically related to Memorial Day or Veterans Day, but some of the boroughs around Pittsburgh (Munhall, a few others) would put up banners on the lampposts with pictures of a local boy who died in one of the wars. Uncanny when you can see them stretch off into the distance. Here in North London, there'll sometimes be a small unobtrusive sign listing the men who lived on that street who died in WWI.

We have to specify that it isn't WWII allies or we get accused of supporting antifa.

42.3. In MA, there are a lot of "squares" (actually intersections) named after local soldiers who were killed in WW1 and later wars. Lots of Vietnam deaths, etc. I'd never seen that before coming here.

As for Memorial Day, a neighbor set off some (illegal) fireworks.

42: Small town down the hill from us has the banners. They used to have memorial Day parade. Not sure if it happened this year, however.

I'll speculate the US variation above largely tracks US demographic history: whether or not a given city/town/institution existed at the time of a given war, and how much its population has expanded since. So, relatively high density of fatalities in the NE, lower in the SE (for the post-CW conflicts at least), lower still west of the Mississippi.

Another potential issue is that lots of the midwest is populated with more recent (shortly before WWI) German immigrants.

42.1. Why unfortunate? Like it or not, it was the Red Army that won the damn war in the European theatre, and if the Ukranians or Kazakhs or Mossheimaters don't like it they can win the next one, but history is history and if you don't like it, too bad.

Thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR gave the Germans the resources necessary to bring the war to the Ukranians, the Kazakhs, and (perhaps) the Mossheimaters, so it's a bit simplistic to say that the Soviets won the war.

48: Setting aside 49, and the general atrociousness of the regime: the ceremony in question also commemorated WWI and the "Border War"* in Angola; in WWI the USSR did not exist, and its founders were for most purposes German co-belligerents; in Angola the USSR was an enemy, the dead commerated most likely killed by Soviet-trained troops with Soviet-supplied weapons.
Most importantly though, the USSR no longer exists, and its legal succesor is the Russian Federation; I would have no objection to the flying of a Russian flag. In fairness one should also fly the flags of the Soviet successor republics, but there definitely weren't 14 flagpoles to spare.
*Whose motives one might deem unjust, and therefore not worth commemoration; but it was in fact commemorated, so those were the rules of this particular game.

Mossheim is one of the nine worlds, right? Reagan famously said they'd stood beside us in every war we've ever fought because, well, I guess he was thinking of France.

French killed WW1: 1,900,000 ; total population 39,000,000. But who cares about a bunch of surrender monkeys who don't speak English.

OP last to 52.

Plus, we're still mad about how Pétain turned into an regional manager for the Nazis.

On the topic of Memorial Day, this is really something.

It's not something I say aloud much, but white people are broken.

The speaker was an old white guy, at least? Committed racists don't want to hear anything that makes them uncomfortable even from old white guys.

I just mean on average.

55: Sad to see. A very old Western Reserve town (Western Reserve Academy is there) with a New England look. Become a very affluent Cleveland.

I blame Connecticut ...

David Diop, an International Booker Prize finalist for his novel "At Night All Blood Is Black," is among the writers whose work is helping France face its history with Africa.
venturing out every night to murder a German soldier
Not murder! Stupid NYT.