The Maryland Department of Veterans and Military Families will honor America’s fallen heroes this Memorial Day with ceremonies at veterans cemeteries and memorials.
All events are free and open to the public, featuring wreath-laying, the playing of Taps, and patriotic tributes to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
On May 25, the 41st Annual Town of Bel Air/American Legion Memorial Day Ceremony will take place with the Bel Air Community Band performing patriotic music.
The Friends of Halfway, MD, African American Cemetery will celebrate Decoration Day on Monday, providing flowers for attendees to place on grave markers and a brass quintet performance. Sixteen veterans are interred at Halfway.
Memorial Day originated as Decoration Day, when communities honored the fallen by decorating graves with flags and flowers, a tradition that continues today.
The 2018 Memorial Day Concert recognized the valor of soldiers such as Private First Class Justin R. Davis, a Magruder High School graduate from Rockville, Maryland, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in June 2006.
In a 2018 Memorial Day statement, Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) reflected, "Across our proud nation this Memorial Day weekend, we remember the men and women of our Armed Forces who made the greatest sacrifice imaginable. I specifically remember the sacrifices of Marylanders like Specialist Tocarra Green, the first woman from Maryland to die in the Iraq War, and Sergeant Erick M. Houck, a Baltimore native who died in Afghanistan. They and those like them deserve every honor we can bestow."