Visitors paying their respects to fallen servicemen this Memorial Day weekend might notice that the headstones of certain graves have coins on top of them.These coins, left by previous visitors to the grave, have specific meanings when left on the gravestone of someone killed while serving inside the military, and those meanings vary based on the coins' denomination.
According to fact-looking at website Snopes.com, leaving a coin on a new gravestone is meant as a message to the deceased soldier's household that someone had visited the grave to pay their respects. Leaving a cent means merely that you visited.
Visitors leaving a nickel indicates that visitors and the deceased experienced training together, while a dime means that visitors served with him in some capacity. By leaving 25 % on the headstone, a guest is telling the grouped family that they were there once the soldier was killed.
According to tradition, national cemeteries and veterans cemeteries is eventually gathered,with the funds used to keep the cemetery or even to pay burial charges for homeless veterans.
In the United States, this exercise allegedly became common during the Vietnam War due to the political divide in the country through the war, Snopes reports. It was a way to show respect without getting into an uncomfortable discussion about the war with the soldier's family.
Listed by Snopes as “legend,” the website is unable to verify that the tradition dates back to Vietnam actually; the earliest mention of the practice dates to an internet site post in June 2009, it reports.
In addition to monetary coins, {challenge coins can also be found on the graves of some servicemen. challenge coins can be found on the graves of some servicemen also. These tokens identify their bearers as members of a particular military unit and so are not given out easily. Challenge coins found at a grave site almost certainly were left there by members of the soldier's unit. Challenge coins found at a grave site almost were still left there by members of the soldier's unit.
I is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank god that such men lived. George S Patton
Apex Gold Silver Coin
