Memorial Day

A veteran once told Thames that he’d lost a buddy in World War II and that the body was never recovered. When he comes to the Tomb of the Unknowns, the veteran imagines that those remains belong to that guy — and this becomes the place where he can be mourned as if his name were cut in stone.

This is why the sentinel buffs his shoes, hollers for a good tucking-in, submits to having his creases measured to within a fraction of an inch. This is why he has seemingly shaved away every shred of his own individuality, his identity, for a task whose purpose is, at the heart of it, exquisitely tender. It is the physical expression of an intangible wish, the fulfillment of a promise.

Long past Memorial Day.

“All soldiers recognize that it represents them,” says Barrett, The Citadel professor. “Underlying the tomb is that if something happens to you and we can’t identify you or find you, that ceremony still honors you.

“We ask them, if necessary, to lay down their lives,” he continues, his voice faltering with emotion, for he was once a soldier. “This is the corollary: They will not be forgotten.”
- from "At the Tomb of the Unknowns, a ritual of remembrance," The Washington Post, May 23, 2011

I remember exactly every time that I've been to the Tomb of the Unknowns. It is that kind of place, indelible in your memory. I went when I was in high school, when I had my own camera, and I took an entire roll of film at Arlington. I got that roll developed, and saw all those photos of rows of white gravestones in perfect order and in perfect symmetry, and wondered why I took so many pictures of the same thing. But at the time, that's all I could do, standing there, looking out across the cemetery. That day I was part of a group that laid a wreath at the tomb, as a group of girls from the American Legion Auxiliary. We wore white gloves in late July and rumpled and wrinkled dresses, and it was hotter than blazes, that sticky humid DC summer heat. We took the task given to us seriously, but we were glad when it was over and we got back on the air conditioned bus.

But the soldiers at the Tomb, the sentinels, they never stop. The continue on at the tomb, the same cadence, the same steps, night and day, rain or shine, hot or cold.

And now I know, the soldier, the sailor, the airman, the marine, they don't stop either. Now I know that they are away from family and in far away places for unknown amounts of time. Sometimes their job is boring, and that is good ;and sometimes it is all too exciting and risky for their own good; and sometimes, sometimes, it is a job that requires the ultimate sacrifice.

It's an honor to know military service people. Recently a met the wife of a retired submariner, and even though we were never in the same place at the same time, we knew each others experience. We knew about underways and inspections and moves and lonliness and the "if I told you I'd have to kill you," spoken in jest, but lived with all seriousness. And even though our husbands never knew one another, they knew too. I'm proud of my friends sons and daughters that are now serving, some in really hard (and hot!!) places.
Thank you to those that serve; thank you to those that served.
They will not be forgotten.

(photo credit: Washington Post)