Field of Flags- Massachusetts Volunteers Mark Memorial Day By Planting 37,000 Flags on Boston Common

37,000 American Flags on the Boston Common in remembrance of fallen Massachusetts soldiers on this Memorial Day. pic.twitter.com/zHRmshjSaT

— BostonTweet (@BostonTweet) May 26, 2014

For the 5th straight year, the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund honored Bay State veterans by planting nearly 37,000 flags on a gentle slope adjacent to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common. The number represents every service member from the Commonwealth who was killed in action- ranging from Lexington to today's War on Terrorism.

Volunteers are scheduled to tend to the field throughout the weekend and answer any questions visitors may have. According to the MMHF, the slots for volunteers tending to the Boston Common flag garden filled quickly. The thousands of flags served as a backdrop for a weekend ceremony honoring the 205 individuals from Massachusetts that were killed in the line of duty since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund was established in 2009 as a means to support family members of post 9/11 servicemen and women with ties to Massachusetts who died in combat. According to the Boston Globe the rippling sea of red, white and blue in the shadow of the Soldiers and Sailor's Monument has drawn visitors from Gold Star families throughout New England.

Today's Train of Thought- A Grave Endeavor, March 27th 2013

To this day, working railroads can be found running through a number of unlikely venues- such as the middle of a street or a golf course. Although some rail lines skirt the periphery of cemeteries and burial grounds, it's a little unusual for a line to run right through the middle of one.

One notable exception is the Nashville National Cemetery, however. The burial ground first opened up shortly after the Civil War just to the north-east of Tennessee's capitol. By 1879, nearly 19 additional acres had been conveyed to what is now the Nashville National Cemetery. Not surprisingly, much of this land was to accommodate soldiers from both the Confederacy and Union that were killed during the Civil War.

Yet to this day, the Nashville National Cemetery remains bisected by an operating rail line- an easement was granted to CSX predecessor line Louisville & Nashville in 1912 to operate the line 'in perpetuity'.

Here, railpictures.net contributor Doyle Massey caught a southbound CSX Q649 (Chicago to Birmingham, AL manifest freight) with C40-8 #7643 heading through the 64.5 acre burial ground in April 2009, more than halfway through her journey from the Windy City to the heart of Dixie. According to Massey, the Nashville National Cemetery was closed for burials by the late 1990s and was also added to the National Register of Historic Places around the same time.

MEMORIAL DAY

National Medal of Honor Memorial at the Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, CA

Memorial Day

As I'm sure many of you have gathered by the numerous sales being offered by department stores or car dealers, this is Memorial Day weekend, which marks the unofficial start of summertime.

Of course, today is about so much more than parades, picnics and cookouts. Today is reserved for the men and women of our Armed Forces who never made it back home. If you have a moment, take some time out to buy a poppy from your local VFW post or find a veteran's organization such as the Wounded Warrior Project, the USO or the Navajo Code Talkers Foundation.

It's not often you find gems in the form of anonymous online comments, but this unattributed comment was right on the money- Today honoring veterans is in fashion. It hasn't always been that way. And when it is no longer politically useful it may not be in the future.

With that said, it's incumbent upon every last one of us to make certain that any display of honor or thanks to veterans and their families doesn't go the way of appletinis and MySpace.

Whatever else you have planned, I hope all of you have a safe Memorial Day Weekend.

Today's Train Of Thought- A Tomb With a View, May 28, 2012

Today's Train of Thought takes us to the final resting place of World War I veteran Edward Earl Price at the Hemphill Cemetary in Chicora, PA.

The Buffalo & Pittsburgh was one of the first ventures for shortline holding company Genesee and Wyoming [NYSE- GWR] outside the state of New York. Seeking to divest themselves of what they saw as a redundant and under utilized rail line, CSX sold the former Baltimore & Ohio line between Buffalo, NY and New Castle, PA to Genesee & Wyoming, who operated it as the Buffalo and Pittsburgh. The B&P saw an expansion in the 1990s when they acquired the nearby Alleghany Railroad and re-opened the dormant Indiana, PA branch.

Here, railpictures.net contributor Kevin Ashbaugh captured this image just a few miles outside the railroad's Butler, PA hub, Buffalo & Pittsburgh GP18 #926 trundles across the wooden trestle near the Hemphill cemetary with local freight BT-3 on May 29, 2007.

Not Another New England Sports Blog! Wishes You a Happy Memorial Day Weekend

(Steve Breen- San Diego Union-Tribune)

Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everybody a good and safe Memorial Day weekend from Not Another New England Sports Blog!

Some of the more astute observers of this blog might recognize the above image as the same one I had up for Memorial Day weekend last year. Although I'll cop to being a fairly lazy individual, it wasn't laziness that prompted me to post the same image for a 2nd year in a row. I thought it was a well done piece by editorial cartoonist Steve Breen of the San Diego Union-Tribune and I figured I'd like to share it with some of the newer visitors to this blog who may not have had a chance to see it before.

If you're a veteran such as myself or just a big supporter of the troops in general, I thought I'd leave you with a couple of links to some veterans and supports organizations for your perusal.

Wounded Warrior Project

Operation Homefront

Home Base Program

Semper Fi Fund

SUDS- Soldiers Undertaking Disabled Scuba

Project Healing Waters

MEMORIAL DAY, May 31 2010

(Steve Breen- San Diego Union-Tribune)