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VALLEY — Monday is Memorial Day, a day Americans honor and mourn those who lost their lives while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. American Legion Post 67, Valley, will be having an 11 a.m. EDT ceremony in Veterans Park to remember local men who lost their lives while in defense of our country.

Post Commander Lanny Bledsoe said that this year’s ceremony will be more low-key than their usual Memorial Day programs but that everyone’s invited.

Gary Harris will be doing trumpet solos. He will be opening with The National Anthem and closing with Taps. Legion members and members of the Auxiliary will be placing flowers at the monuments in Veterans Park. These monuments list the names, hometowns, branch of service, and death dates of local men who died in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The monuments also list where they were when they died.

Starting in 1868, Americans in both the North and South remembered the men who had died in the Civil War at an event called Decoration Day. Flowers and memorials were placed on the graves of soldiers who had fallen in the Civil War. From 1868 to 1970, it took place every year on May 30. It’s now annually observed on the fourth Monday in May.

In the years following World War I, the name was changed from Decoration Day to Memorial Day to honor U.S. soldiers who had died in all wars, not just the Civil War.