Obama commemorates last Memorial Day as president

ARLINGTON, Va., May 30 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama paid tribute to fallen American soldiers Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, marking his final Memorial Day as U.S. president.

At a late-morning ceremony, he laid a wreath at the cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Solider and spoke about those who sacrificed their lives in combat.

"The Americans who rest here and their families ... ask of us today only one thing in return: that we remember them," Obama said.

Earlier, Obama hosted a breakfast for military and veteran service groups, along with senior military leaders at the White House.

The day's activities in the capital later included a National Memorial Day Parade along Constitution Avenue. The parade paid tribute to the World War II generation, commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Persian Gulf War and honored those who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

Sunday night, The Beach Boys headlined a free concert on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol.

During his weekly address Saturday, Obama remembered the fallen troops.

"It's a day we remember those who never made it home; those who never had the chance to take off the uniform and be honored as a veteran," Obama said.

Obama said Memorial Day's idea came from "ordinary citizens who acknowledged that while we can't build monuments to every heroic act of every warrior we lost in battle, we can keep their memories alive by taking one day out of the year to decorate the places where they're buried."

The holiday originally was called Decoration Day. The first large-scale observance was at Arlington Cemetery in 1868, three years after the bloody U.S. Civil War that killed more than 600,000 people.

American forces are putting their lives on the line in dangerous locations. Nearly 10,000 U.S. service members are in Afghanistan and more than 4,000 American troops in Iraq and Syria are part of an anti-Islamic State effort that is mostly advisory.