<--PREV Doc #33  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #35 Document #34; February 11, 1957 To Dorothy Mills Young Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series: Army The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVIII - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part I: A New Beginning, Old Problems; January 1957 to May 1957 Chapter 1: The Mideast and the Eisenhower Doctrine   Dear Dorothy: I brought along to Thomasville your letter of the third, to attempt to explain to you my own feelings about the recent Army order regarding military funerals.1 I, too, felt more than a little sad when I was informed as to the decision. But the passing of time creates changes in the customs of the past and we simply have to go along with them. Uniforms, weapons, regulations, means of transportation, and even some traditions all change with time. From sentiment I want to rebel at some of the things that must be done, but intellectually I know I must go along. At any rate, I do want to thank you for writing to me as you did. With affectionate regard, Sincerely 1 Mrs. Young was the wife of Brigadier General Gordon Russell Young (for background see Galambos, Chief of Staff, no. 1581). She had written to ask Eisenhower to intervene, on behalf of the bereaved in opposition to the "motorization" of military funerals. She had "learned firsthand," she wrote, of the "comfort and pride . . . that the old rituals give" (AWF/A: Army). On Eisenhower's Thomasville, Georgia, vacation see no. 7. The military had for some time been considering this change in an effort to reduce costs. Widespread military and public disapproval would, however, force the government to drop the matter (Telephone conversation, Tom Sherlock, Office of the Historian, Arlington National Cemetery, Aug. 17, 1995, EP; see also Goodpaster to Young, Feb. 16, 1957, WHCF/PPF 1881; and B. C. Mossman and M. W. Stark, The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funerals 1921 - 1969, Department of the Army [Washington, D.C., 1971]). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Dorothy Mills Young, 11 February 1957. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 34. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/34.cfm <--PREV Doc #33  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #35

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