National Memorial Day is a day honoring and mourning all the United States Military personnel who have lost their lives fighting in the US Armed Forces. On this day, parades are hosted in some states in honor of the lost soldiers. Americans also visit cemeteries and memorials on this day. Some wear red poppy in remembrance of the fallen as a long held US tradition.

National Memorial Day is observed every year on the last Monday of May.

National Memorial Day, formerly known as decoration day, was originally meant to be celebrated on May 30th to commemorate those who lost their lives in the rebellion. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” General A. John Logan-leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans- proclaimed. The first Memorial Day was meant to commemorate the soldiers lost in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars. In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees; the change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.