Honor all public servants, too

When I was growing up in southwest Missouri, we decorated the graves of everyone on Memorial Day. That was just after World War II, so we understood well the debt we owed to our soldiers. Memorial Day was established to honor Union soldiers who died in the Civil War and was changed after World War I to honor all who had died in war. But in the ’40s and ’50s, Memorial Day was a day to remember all those who had gone before us, not just those who had died in war.