It's Tuesday, May 5th, 1868.

Flowers are in full bloom.

Across the 37 states, the stench of a brutal and bloody civil war still fills the nation's nostrils.

And it's time to remember those who gave their all.

Next on the AM update. Three years after the Civil War ended on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans, the Grand Army of the Republic, established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.

Major General John A. Logan declared it should be May 30th. It's believed the date was chosen because those flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery across the

Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The ceremonies centered around the morning-draped veranda of the

Arlington Mansion, once the home of General Robert E. Lee. Various Washington officials,

including General and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant presided over the ceremonies. After speeches,

children from the soldiers and sailors' orphan home and members of the G.A.R. made their way

through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers

and singing hymns. Arlington National Cemetery is no doubt the most well-known final resting place for

hundreds of thousands of veterans from the Revolutionary War to today's conflicts. But that's not the

only place where those brave men who risked and gave their all for the country can be found,

of course. The thousands of cemeteries across our land are filled themselves with

thousands of stories, stories of bravery, heroism, and the greatest love of all that a man would

lay down his life for another. Two of those cemeteries are East Oak Grove Cemetery in

Morgantown, West Virginia, and Riverside Cemetery, West Milton, Ohio.

This Memorial Day, I want to tell you two of those stories, the stories of two men laid to rest at

those two cemeteries. There's something about the conscientious objector that captures and stirs

the emotions and confronts the reader or watcher, particularly the

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