Although Memorial Day (previously known as Decoration Day) was designated to honor fallen military men and women, many people use the day to decorate all of their family graves.

Memorial Day, like most other issues between North and South, has a scarred and convoluted history. There are still some southern states that declare their own day to remember their military heroes who died in battle or served in battle and died later. Some Confederate women's groups were decorating graves of soldiers before the end of the Civil War. There are more than two dozen towns that claim to have originated the holiday.

In May 1996, President Lyndon Johnson officially declared Waterloo, N.Y., as the birthplace of Memorial Day.

On May 5,1868, General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, officially proclaimed Memorial Day in his General Order No. 11. The holiday was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890, it was recognized by all of the northern states.

The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war).

It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays.

Even now, several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

In 1915, Moina Michael wrote, "We cherish too, the Poppy red That grows on fields where valor led, It seems to signal to the skies That blood of heroes never dies."

She became the first to sell poppies to raise money for servicemen in need.

Madam Guerin from France liked the idea and started selling artificial poppies to obtain money for orphans and widows of servicemen.

In 1922 Michael gained the support of the VFW and that group became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later they were selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans.

In 1948 Michael was recognized by the United States postal service when they issued a red, three cent stamp with her image on it.

Although there are few Memorial Day parades any more, there are still ceremonies around the country celebrating America's fallen heroes.

Since the late 50's on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery.

Since 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis have been placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. Beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye's Heights (the Luminaria Program.) Washington, D.C., held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years in 2004.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed in December 2000, which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "to voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps.'"

In Nevada, flags are placed on veteran's graves through the efforts of local concerned citizens who want the holiday celebrated for its traditional meaning.

In my family, decorating the graves of veterans pretty much means decorating every grave. Each generation since the Revolutionary War has sent family members off to war. That's one tradition I'd like to see stop some day.

Memorial Day isn't just for decorating graves. It's for remembering the sacrifices made by those who stepped forward to protect us all.