The Friday File: On 5/5/1868, the Grand Army of the Republic, an advocacy group of Union Army Civil War veterans, established Decoration Day as a day to decorate graves of the war dead with flowers. Following WWI, Memorial Day was expanded to honor those who died in all American wars, and in 1971 it became a national holiday. The total number of American war dead, 1.3 million. Appreciate their sacrifices.