Coins on gravestones have particular meanings

Site visitors paying their respects to fallen servicemen this Memorial Day weekend might notice that the headstones of certain graves have got coins on top of them.



These coins, left by earlier people to the grave, have distinctive meanings when left on the gravestone of someone killed while serving in the military, and those meanings vary based on the coins' denomination.



According to fact-checking website Snopes.com, leaving a coin on a gravestone is meant as a message to the deceased soldier's household that somebody had visited the grave to cover their respects. Leaving a penny means simply that you visited.



Visitors leaving a new nickel indicates that visitors and the deceased experienced training together, while a dime means that visitors served with him in some capacity. By leaving a quarter on the headstone, a visitor is telling the grouped household that they were there when the soldier was killed.



According to tradition, national cemeteries and veterans cemeteries is eventually collected,with the funds used to keep the cemetery or even to pay burial charges for homeless veterans.



In the usa, this exercise allegedly became common during the Vietnam War because of the political divide in the united kingdom during the war, Snopes reports. It had been a way to show respect without getting into an uncomfortable discussion concerning the war with the soldier's family.



Listed by Snopes because “legend,” the website struggles to verify that the tradition actually goes back to Vietnam; the earliest reference to the practice dates to a website post in June 2009, it reports.



In addition to monetary coins, {challenge coins can also be on the graves of some servicemen. challenge coins can be found on the graves of some servicemen also. These tokens determine their bearers as members of a particular military unit and are not given out easily. Challenge coins found at a grave site probably 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