Memorial Day in US and other countries

>Is Memorial Day in the US a Public Holiday?

Too bloody right it is!

My wife and I took the extra time on the long weekend to visit a few historic towns around Mid-Virginia and have a look at the Luray Caverns.
Memorial Day is pretty similar to ANZAC Day in the US country towns. The towns we visited either had had parades or there were large numbers at local cemeteries laying flowers.

As some of the cemeteries in Virginia date back to not long after the first European settlement of the US there is a fair bit of history in and around including a tonne of the US Civil War dead.
Gettysburg isnt too far up the road and Harpers Ferry is only a 20 minute ride away. The local town, Leesburg had a Civil War dust-up near the Court House.

I havent seen the US cities celebrate Memorial Day like the Australian cities do, but in the US and Australian Country towns, details differ but Memorial Day and Anzac Day are celebrated pretty similararly. The VFW ( Veterans of Foreign Wars ) and RSL ( Returned Servicemens League ) serving the same purpose in both.

One big interesting differance between Au and the US, in Virginia there are numerous differant styles of car number plates with small messages written on them.

I have one that supports saving and preserving the Bald Eagle, but others include "Pearl Harbour Survivor", "Returned Prisoner of War", "Vietnam Veteran", "United States Marines", "USS .... " etc etc.

There are fair dinkum about 300 differant plates to choose from ranging from a $25 one off fee to a $50 one off fee.



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Canada still honors our war dead on November 11th(11th hour) no matter what day that falls on. It was in WWI that our nation was forged in Fire.