Less than a month before Korea, years before Vietnam and decades before Iraq, Memorial Day was about remembering those who served and died during the Wars previous, back to the Civil War. The Second World War had only ended less than five years before, the task of rebuilding was still going on. The upheavals and changes were new with words like "Right Of Self-Determination" and "Cold War" recent additions to the lexicon. Just sixty years ago today.
Everything was in a state of change, nobody really knew where any of it was headed. The only thing certain were fields of white crosses, evidence that sacrifice was the constant - no matter how much things changed, or how much they remained the same.