It is that time of year again when left-wingers try to warp the Bible to support their anti-American ideals, and this time of year, they often abuse the birth of Christ by saying that Christ’s earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, were either homeless, were refugees, or were immigrants. But in truth, they were NONE of those things.
This year, useful idiot Bear Grylls jumped to his X account to claim that Jesus’ mother Mary was a “Palestinian” and the family were “refugees. Everything he said is a lie.
Grylls launched his false recounting of the birth of Christ saying the world is celebrating the “birth of a Middle Eastern refugee” who “changed the course of the world forever.”
“This is just a short extract from near the beginning of the adventure. When Maryam, a young, poor, and no doubt terrified Palestinian girl, gives birth in a run-down animal pen, to a baby who was foretold for hundreds of years,” he continued.
“Yet she was not alone. And she never would be. Because this was the moment that God Almighty broke into our fallen world in person,” he wrote, concluding, “To many of us, it is undoubtedly: The Greatest Story Ever Told.”
For his lies, X slapped a brutal community note on him:
Grylls eventually deleted the post filled with false information.
But this lie has been passed around by leftists for decades. A few years ago, ABC chief political analyst Matthew Dowd jumped to his Twitter account to disgorge the same shop-worn and false liberal claim that Jesus Christ’s parents, Joseph and Mary, were “two immigrants” in Bethlehem in the tale of the first Christmas. It all amounts to fake news that is over 2,000 years old.
Going back thousands of years for his Christmas Eve fake news, Dowd slanted the Christmas nativity story by saying Joseph and Mary were “immigrants” who were turned away by many in the town. “Let us remember today,” Dowd wrote, “2 immigrants, a man, and his very pregnant wife, sought shelter and were turned away by many. She gave birth in a manger.”
This claim that Joseph and Mary were “immigrants” is a mischaracterization long used to push a modern-day policy of immigration amnesty. The left’s argument goes: If even Jesus Christ’s parents were “immigrants,” how can today’s American Christians be against open borders and amnesty?
But the truth is, the famed Biblical couple were not “immigrants.” Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem to register for what was mainly Caesar’s Internal Revenue Service. The pair had made their way to Bethlehem to register for a government census so that they could be assessed a tax bill.
The key excerpt comes in the Book of Luke, Chapter 2, (New International Version), which reads:
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.
Neither Joseph nor Marry were in town to “immigrate” to Bethlehem. They were there to be identified and registered by the government.
But even if Joseph and Mary did intend to move to Bethlehem in the Christmas story, they would still not be “immigrants” because their hometown of Nazareth and the Christmas story town of Bethlehem were still in the same country. You can only be an “immigrant” when you are leaving one country and entering another.
Also, showing his unfamiliarity with the Christmas story, Dowd made the mistake of saying that Mary “gave birth in a manger.” That would have been quite a trick because a “manger” is the wooden box Baby Jesus was placed in after his birth. In fact, Mary gave birth in a stable, and then her baby was laid in a manger.
Like Grylls, Dowd eventually deleted his tweet. So, maybe he finally got the message.
In addition, neither Joseph nor Mary were “Palestinian.” Both were Jewish people who were from Judea and under the rule of the Roman Empire.
Liberals also warp the Christmas story in other ways. Joseph and Mary are often claimed to be “homeless” and “poor.” In truth, they were neither. They had a home in Nazareth, and Joseph was a carpenter for a living and had a middle-class lifestyle for his day.
So, just stop it. Joseph and Mary were not homeless. They were not trying to immigrate to Bethlehem. And they were not refugees from anything.
“And unto you a child is born.” With that promise Earth was given the promise of a light unto all men, a light that will lead us to our salvation if only we choose to accept that path.
Even if you are not a Christian, even if you’re not especially religious, if you claim another religion or none at all, the path that Christ walked when he was born into this world is a path from which we can all learn. It is one worthy of study and acceptance even if only as an example of the best way to live. Christ’s path is, indeed, a philosophy worthy of consideration for it is one based on service to your fellows, love for all, and a suppression of one’s selfishness in order to pursue a higher calling.
What could be a better path, even for the non-religious?
So, as we celebrate this Christmas Day, the day meant to memorialize the birth of Christ, and as we head into 2025 let us all strive to work harder to be of service to our fellows. Let us engage in those random acts of kindness that makes everyone’s lives so much more fulfilling–not to mention easier. Let us remember to say thank you to those who have done something for us and let us offer our own actions for others without expecting immediate repayment.
Let’s try and leave this place a bit better off than we found it.
I want to thank each and every one of you for having been such wonderfully loyal readers and for you folks that have only been recent visitors, may you find a home here for the upcoming days. We hope to give you a Christmas gift that never stops giving here at Publius Forum.
May God Bless you all and enjoy the day with your family and friends.
Merry Christmas and, if you don’t visit again before the end of the year, may you have a Happy New Year
The day of celebration of the independence of our great country is once again at hand… for those of us who can remember what it’s all about, that is. As former Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, William Bennett, has commented, this country is on the verge of a national amnesia about our own history. He warns that we are becoming a country whose citizens are born as aliens a fact that will, in the end, make it impossible for our young Americans to sign up and fight for our country. After all, they won’t understand why this country is a “way of life worthy of their own lives” if they do not know its history. And that is a dangerous thing.
But it isn’t just the young that are in danger of losing touch with the greatness of our country. In a day when we barely stopped our own Senate from signing away our national sovereignty and making citizenship a hallow convention, far too many Americans seem to have no idea what makes the USA special or deserving of any devotion.
Our Founders, of course, realized how important the light of liberty is that they sacrificed so much to ignite. They well understood that it’s not just important to their fellow Americans but to all of humanity. As James Madison said, “the origin and outset of the American Republic contain lessons of which posterity ought not to be deprived.” But today we are not only depriving humanity of those lessons, we are even depriving our own people from such revelations.
Unfortunately, today we haven’t the luxury to be so thoughtless of our national charge as the light of liberty. There are forces in this world that wish to deprive not only Americans of our liberty, but all mankind of theirs. To that threat we must apply Samuel Adams’ assertion that “our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” Continue reading “July 4th, Independence Day… For Those Who Actually Remember It”
Today America enjoys the celebration of 248 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy. Continue reading “248 Independence Day Celebrations and Counting: But What Does it all Mean?”
July 4th. It brings about thoughts of picnics, fireworks, days off work and family get-togethers. But, all too often these days, many forget what the holiday is supposed to celebrate. The birth of our nation, forged in the crucible of fire and cooled by the hard work of her people. Created by some of the smartest men of their age, pondering some of the highest concepts upon which any nation was ever conceived, the USA has endured for 248 years today.
As Thomas Paine said, “The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.” So has the USA has been a beacon of liberty and not just one selfishly sitting on that shinning city on a hill (as Ronald Reagan famously quoted John Winthrop), but one willing to advocate and work for it among all the peoples of the world. George Washington knew that our cause was the cause of future generations of man. “Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!”, he said.
And Americans have always given generously of themselves and their treasure for such causes around the globe. John Adams put it perfectly when he said, “I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.” Continue reading “What IS This ‘July 4th’ Holiday, Anyway?”
Today we celebrate Independence Day, the day we stepped out on our own and formally declared our intention to become our own nation and not a vassal state of England. Unfortunately, too many people keep calling this day “the July Fourth holiday.” But, we don’t celebrate a number or a month. We celebrate our independence as a nation. So, I urge everyone to stop disrespecting our nation’s birthday by calling it “July Fourth” and here is why…
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King of England declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Not only that but celebrations on July fourth weren’t even that common for quite some time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had only recently happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes. Continue reading “We Need to Stop Calling This The ‘July Fourth Holiday” — Here’s Why…”
(The following article was written by radio icon Rush Limbaugh’s father and was often read around the Independence Day holiday on the air by the talk show host.)
By Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr,
It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the Southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.
Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies weren’t nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.
The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that “the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stockings was nothing to them.” All discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks. Continue reading “The American Founders: Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor”
Well, it is a long story. The place I was hosting at sort of disappeared and along with it my ability to get at my archives of this site so that I could get it transferred to a working service.
Lots of other troubles on top of it, but suffice to say,. I finally got all the tech issues straightened out and I now have access to this site once again.
And there was great rejoicing…
So, I am not sure what I am doing here yet, but at least I now have access to it all once again.
It has been 19 years since that horrible day in 2001 when terrorism hit America with a vengeance. But many want to forget and pretend it never happened and we already have a generation of kids just about to, or soon to enter into their young adult years who can’t remember what happened on September 11, 2001. It is up to us to keep the memory of that day alive lest we allow it to be repeated.
But how do we approach that remembrance? But looking at an empty word document sitting ready to be filled with my 9/11 memorial finds words coming slowly, and I find it so hard to start this piece.
But I realized why it is so hard for me to start this piece. I am still furious, and feelings are still too raw, I still well up in tears when I see video of the towers falling, my heart still stops when I see that heart-wrenching image of bodies falling from windows hundreds of feet in the air. I still get that dark feeling in the pit of my stomach, the same one I felt that morning in 2001.
It’s all still too emotional to write a mere memorial. Words fail me.
I sat there wondering why it was that some 11 years on I still feel this anger, these emotions of loss?
I mean, let’s face it, we have come a long way from those terrible days of vulnerability on September 11, 2001. We’ve killed many hundreds of al Qaeda’s operatives–including the evil bin Laden himself. We’ve seriously hurt that enemy.
We’ve had a healthy dose of revenge on al Qaeda so that should go a long way toward easing the emotions of 9/11.
But that isn’t the problem. The problem is that a large number of Americans still have not learned the lesson that 9/11 should have so easily taught us.
We are now mired in idiotic, politically correct arguments about whether or not Christian ministers will be allowed at any memorial events in New York. We are told that our intelligence officials are being forced to attend Islamic services at mosques so that they can prove we “care” about Muslims. Worse, we still see a large sector of the American political arena saying Tea Partiers and Christians–our own citizens–are somehow “just like” or “just as bad” as the Islamist monsters that cut off people’s heads and throw acid on young girls that supposedly break Islamic traditions.
We have not learned that this enemy is not going to be swayed by our pitiful attempts to show them that we “like” them. They aren’t mad because we don’t like them. They are mad because they don’t rule us and their goal is to either kill us all or subjugate us. There is no black and white here, but too many of our own are fooling themselves into believing that we can “lead from behind” with “soft power.”
It is so bad, in fact, that on the tenth anniversary we still hadn’t been able to come together long enough to build a memorial to the attack, or anything else for that matter, at Ground Zero. Various governments and groups were still arguing over it all even after a decade. Ground Zero was still a barely-started construction site.
Consequently, I find it hard to write a mere memorial as if this is an event long in our past. It is not. Worse, our own people are making sure that we cannot put this behind us because they are not allowing us to beat this enemy.
So, even eighteen years out the wounds are still raw, the enemy still strong, and traitors in our midst are lending them succor.
These words don’t come easily. Nor do they come with relief. They are hard, cold facts. We are still in danger. We can’t “forget,” nor can we start mere memorials as if it is all long over.
It isn’t over.
Today we face the Islamic State, or ISIS, an Islamic terror that is surging back into Iraq and Syria, an infestation of murderous “religion” that Obama ha allowed to grow unchecked and only now is saying we might want to do something about. These people are targeting the United States. They’ve murdered several American citizens specifically to prove they can do it.
Mostly our president does nothing.
So, no. It isn’t over.
____________ “The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
We are taking this grand holiday off to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Today we celebrate Independence Day, the day we stepped out on our own and formally declared our intention to become our own nation and not a vassal state of England. Unfortunately, too many people keep calling this day “the July Fourth holiday.” But, we don’t celebrate a number or a month. We celebrate our independence as a nation. So, I urge everyone to stop disrespecting our nation’s birthday by calling it “July Fourth” and here is why…
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King of England declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Not only that but celebrations on July fourth weren’t even that common for quite some time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had only recently happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes.
Then again, not many Americans had much interest in the Declaration itself until the 1790s when the emerging parties began to vie for bragging rights over who wrote it. The Democratic Republicans proudly held that their leader, Thomas Jefferson, was the author of the document while the Federalists reminded everyone that their leader, John Adams, was also a member of the committee that drafted the document and that he, as much as Jefferson, had his stamp on the Declaration of Independence. Continue reading “Dear America, Stop Calling This The ‘July Fourth Holiday.” Here’s Why…”
Today America enjoys the celebration of 244 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy. Continue reading “244 Independence Day Celebrations and Counting: But What Does it all Mean?”
John Adams was one of the truly indispensable men among our founding fathers. He was the man that wrote one of the first fully written out Constitutions in human history when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. He wrote a seminal book on government that helped inform the founders of our nation, he was an ambassador to France and other European nations, he was our first vice president, our second president, and more.
In fact, Adams was at the center of one of the incidents that set the tone for our national character. When the Redcoats responsible for the Boston Massacre were put under arrest, John Adams stepped forward to represent the Redcoats in court. Many of his fellow patriots were amazed at this offer, some even incensed at Adams for doing so. But Adams said that the rule of law was far more important than merely making points with the home crowd and the Redcoats deserved to have competent representation. Continue reading “Our Second President, John Adams, Recalls the First Independence Day”
The latest calumny against our country spewed by the historically illiterate left that our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” is “racist.” It is a charge that further proves that liberals are disingenuous, hysterics that only parrot the garbage that they hear from others even as they don’t take any time to research the matter themselves.
This time the nonsense is being peddled by the California chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which has not only passed a “resolution” that the national anthem is “racist,” but has announced that it wants to pursue congressional sponsors to rescind the status of “The Star Spangled Banner” as our national theme song.
Why are they doing this? What else but raaaaacism?
Firstly, the move was an effort by the California NAACP to pass a resolution in support of anti-American protester and former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, according to the Sacramento Bee.
“We owe a lot of it to Kaepernick,” California NAACP President Alice Huffman during the group’s state meeting this week. “I think all this controversy about the knee will go away once the song is removed.”
To honor our troops for Memorial Day this year, I am going to share this story about their mettle. What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly made to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13, 2010. While leading his platoon on a combat patrol, Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan. Lt. Kelly was only 29-years-old.
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths… No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make… for you….
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi… Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines… Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds… But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman. Continue reading “Memorial Day Special: Never Forget What American Troops Are Made Of”
“From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”–Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day to pause in thanks for the sacrifices made by millions of Americans who died while fighting to preserve freedom, a documentary called “These Hallowed Grounds” reminds us that our war dead are not just interred here at home, but are spread across the world on battlefields almost lost to the memory of far too many of us.
When we think of our military cemeteries, those final resting places of so many American heroes, we usually think of Arlington National Cemetery, certainly. But do we think of the hundreds of American military cemeteries in such places as France, the Philippines, and other nations across the world? Sadly, not many of us do.
If you are like many of us, you may not be very well informed about all the many American cemeteries erected to memorialize our legions of war dead. To correct that deficit the PBS documentary “These Hallowed Grounds” is an excellent way to learn about these bucolic and solemn memorials.
Most Americans know of the World War Two cemetery at Omaha Beach, Normandy, site of one of the 1944 D-Day landings. But there are some twenty-one other cemeteries in eight other countries memorializing our dead from World Wars One and Two and the documentary tells the powerful tale of many of them.
Our many war cemeteries are maintained by the U.S. government’s American Battle Monuments Commission and contain monuments to some 125,000 American war dead. The names of another 94,000 missing soldiers are inscribed into the Walls Of The Missing at these locations and this film takes viewers on an important journey across the world to see and learn about them. Continue reading “Thousands of American Soldiers Lie Buried in U.S. Military Cemeteries Across the World”
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.
General Logan was a Senator from Illinois and eventually became a candidate for Vice President on the 1884 Republican ticket, losing to Grover Cleveland and another Illinoisan, Vice President Adlai Stevenson. But before all that Logan was instrumental in creating Decoration Day, the celebration of the nation’s war dead that eventually became Memorial Day.
The following is the general order that Logan issued in 1868.
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868
The 30th day 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 church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
Liberals went wild on Monday rehashing a decades-old lie about how President Lyndon Johnson was seen in a 1968 White House photo being “overcome” by the loss of life during the Vietnam War.
The image went viral on Monday as historically illiterate liberals began posting the photo they claimed showed LBJ being overcome with emotion about the loss of American lives. Naturally, it went viral because liberals were using it to claim President Donald Trump is heartless in the face of the death of Americans who have died from the coronavirus.
A typical tweet juxtaposing the falsified photo of LBJ with the supposed heartlessness of Trump was posted by lying liberal Ben LaBolt who moaned that today we don’t have a president with “empathy” like that wonderful LBJ.
The claim that the photo depicts well-known racist, and foul-mouthed ass Lyndon Baines Johnson as crumbling in the face of the toll of American deaths during the Vietnam war has been around for as long as that photo has been in the public eye.
But that characterization is a lie. That photo simply was not snapped when LBJ was hearing about the death toll in Vietnam.
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
