War has been around since Genesis 14. Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic — established "it" as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared it should be May 30.
https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/memday.pdf
We have lost about 1,010,985 in wars in our Nation.
Revolutionary War 4435
War of 1812 2260
Mexican War 13283
Civil War 364511
Spanish American War 2446
WWI 116516
WWII 405399
Korean War 36574
Vietnam "Conflict" 58220
Persian Gulf War 382
https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/summaryData/casualties/principalWars May 17, 2024
Operation Iraqi Freedom 4,431
Operation Enduring Freedom 2,354
Operation New Dawn 74
https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf May 17, 2024
Operation Inherent Resolve 23
Operation Freedom's Sentinel 77
https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties/oir/byCategory
https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/conflictCasualties/ofs/byCategory
President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address given on 19 NOV 1863 on the battlefield in PA states:
"we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.24404500/?st=text
