Memorial Day, May 31st this year (2010), is the time for the U.S. to commemorate servicemen and women who died while serving in one of branches of the military. This Memorial Day, honor the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country with flowers of gratitude, showing your appreciation with patriotic bouquets of red, white and blue flowers.

Honoring those who have fallen is as old as military conflict itself; about 430 B.C., around the end of the Peloponnesian War between the Athenians and the Spartans, the great statesman and orator Pericles, leader of the Athenians, said of the fallen that: “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.” This tribute is one we can offer this Memorial Day to the almost 1.2 million ^{[note 1]} U.S. servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for the ideals we hold dear.

Symbolizing mourning and passing to a greater peace, Memorial Day flowers honor our brave armed forces and express our gratitude to those who gave their lives so that we may live in freedom to follow our dreams, and our hope that they are at peace. Whether you take flowers to the grave of a relative who died in conflict, or to the home of someone close to them who they left behind, please find a way to remember their sacrifice. We recommend a patriotic bouquet, with red, white and blue accents, along with a hand-written and heart-felt message.

[ Note 1 ] From the Congressional Research Service paper, “American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics”, February 2010. Confederate losses during the Civil War are estimated, there being no authoritative records.