A look back at the first Memorial Day and 2 local veterans wartime experience
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IDAHO FALLS – Today, we honor the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.
Memorial Day has been an official holiday for 51 years, but its roots go back much farther. The earliest recognition of this day, according to History.com, occurred about a year after the ending of the Civil War on May 5, 1866. At that time, it was called Decoration Day.
Two years later, General John Logan, the leader of an organization for Union Civil War veterans, called for a day of remembrance on May 30.
“The 30th of May, 1868, is designated 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 now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” Logan said.
General James Garfield, who later became the nation’s 20th president, gave a speech at Arlington National Cemetery that day as 5,000 people decorated the graves of 20,000 Civil War soldiers.
“We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue,” Garfield said in his speech.
In 1971, Congress officially declared the last Monday in May a national holiday and expanded it to include veterans who died in any American war.
To commemorate this occasion, we thought it would be appropriate to share some stories about veterans we’ve posted recently.
To veterans, one and all, thank you for your service.
Sept. 1, 2021
American POW endured daily beatings for being a spy. Now his story is being told
As Bob Inama walked to his mailbox in December 1959, he was surprised to learn there was a letter for him from the President of the United States.
Inama, an Idaho Falls native, was a student at Utah State University at the time and had just finished an internship with the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C. During a June interview with author Heather Moore, Inama said he initially thought the President was writing to congratulate him.
“I walked back to my apartment, opened the letter and it stated, ‘Greetings from the President of the United States and your friends and neighbors.’ I realized I had just been drafted,” Inama said.
It was the height of the Cold War and political tensions were high between the United States and the former Soviet Union and its allies. Inama had been planning to attend law school at George Washington University in hopes of becoming a lawyer, but that would have to wait now.
In August 1960, a year before the Berlin Wall went up, Inama was assigned to a U.S. military base in Hanau, West Germany. After several months, Inama was called into Major Taggett’s office.
When he walked in, Taggett pulled out Inama’s college transcript and observed that he had graduated in government and economics and spoke some German. Despite the two years of German language courses he’d taken, Inama said he had a hard time speaking it.
As the conversation continued, Inama was shocked to learn he was being assigned a top-secret mission as a spy.
Nov. 11, 2021
100-year-old World War II vet shares experiences and a thought for today’s generation
William Hulet doesn’t consider himself a hero.
The Idaho Falls native is 100 years old and is one of the few remaining veterans of World War II.
EastIdahoNews.com met with Hulet at his home this week, along with his daughter, Tammy, and her husband Jon Wood, as he recalled several experiences during his military days overseas.
When asked if there was one experience, in particular, that stood out to him, he was reluctant to share.
“These are just stories,” Hulet said. “I don’t know if you want to get into it.”
Then in a typical fashion, he opened his mouth, recalling specific experiences in great detail. His recall of dates and timelines is not as keen as it used to be, but each story triggered another memory, opening a flood of disjointed recollections.