美国英语听力80篇1 Lesson04
Memorial Day (A)
That music is called "Taps."
It is played at military fuerals to honor soldiers who have died.
The sound of taps is eing heard at cemeteries throughout the United States as America honors its war dead.
The Memorial Day holiday started in 1868.
The purpose was to honor soldiers killed during the Civil War between America's northern and southern states.
Back then, the holiday was called Decoration Day.
People used flowers and ribbons to decorate the burial places of those killed during the war.
Today, Memorial Day honors the men and women who died in all of America's wars.
The first yearly observance of Memorial Day was at the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
The cemetery is across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.
It is the largest and most famous national burial place in the United States.
It includes about 200 hectares of rolling hills.
Up and down the hills are lines of simple, white stones marking the graves where the soldiers are buried.
About 200,000 soldiers are buried there.
They include military and political leaders, cabinet officers, and Supreme Court judges.
Only two American presidents are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
One is William Howard Taft. He was president in the early 1900s.
The other is John Kennedy. He was president in the early 1960s.
He was murdered during his first term in office.
A fire burns all the time over President Kennedy's burial place.
More people have visited his grave than any other in the United States.
Memorial Day ceremonies also are being held at the vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
The ceremonies honor Americans killed in fighting in Vietnam.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was the idea of Jan Scruggs.
Mister Scruggs fought in Vietnam. After the war, he was deeply troubled.
He and others felt that American soldiers killed in Vietnam had been forgotten.
So, he organized efforts to build a monument to honor them.
He wanted to put on the monument the name of every American who died or was missing in the Vietnam War.
In 1980, a group of former soldiers announced a national competition.
The veterans"group invited American artists to create a memorial to helpunite the nation after the Vietnam War had divided it.
Eight famous designers and artists were the judges.
They judged more than 1,400 designs.
They chose the design of Maya Lin.
Ms Lin was twenty-one years old.
She was studying architecture at Yale University in New Haven Connecticut.
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