Hannah and Dan visit Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia

The day after losing in a rout to DC traffic, Hannah and I appreciatively take to the DC Metro for our travels.  A simple, functioning credit card is all it takes to ride the Blue Line from Virginia to the Arlington National Cemetery (ANC).  Literally at the entrance to the ANC, the Metro stop is an easy walk to the information center.  At the information booth, the seasoned older woman, but not as old as we are, tries to encourage us to take the $7.50 tour bus.  When we demur, she says, “But there are hills up to the Lee Mansion.”  To which we think but don’t say, “Yes, that’s just what we want.  Look at us.  We are crazed uber-exercisers.  Hillz r us!”  She does tell us that the three sites that all touristos go to are: 1. the Kennedy grave, 2. the Robert E. Lee Mansion, and 3. the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  For us, because of the HBO film “Section 60”                     http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/section-60-arlington-national-cemetery/index.html, we are drawn to that part of the cemetery where the latest casualties of war are buried.   

Immediately I am taken with solemnity, peace, and quiet as we walk on roads by the symmetrically organized white tombstones among the mature deciduous trees.  Though it’s a busy, low 70 degree Saturday in early October, the crowds are respectful and reserved.  I wonder, why do people come here?  It’s a cliché that we come to respect and honor those that gave in Lincoln’s words their last full measure of devotion.  As with an cliché, there is a whole lot of truth to it, but it lacks a personal connection and meaning for me.  Hannah says it’s evidence of the idiocy and cost of war.  You go girl.

At the Kennedy Grave, I have forgotten but am reminded of the Kennedy family heartache, as there is a marker for a stillborn Kennedy child and another for a child who lived but two days.  Bobby Kennedy and recently buried Ted Kennedy are there to the left.  John Kennedy is a rock star to those of us over 60; we remain his groupies. 

Biting into an apple as we leave the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a security guard approaches and quietly tells us, “No food is allowed on the grounds.  It’s a $100 fine if the cameras catch you.”  Embarrassed, we sheepishly stuff the half eaten apples into Hannah’s backpack.  Those could have been some expensive free motel apples. 

Down the hill, we then walk to Section 60.  It is one thing to see gravestones of WWI and II soldiers who served and later died in their 70s after a long life. It’s another to see the name of a 20 year old born in 1990 who was killed this very summer in Afghanistan.  Soon we see what I imagine to be the parents of a dead soldier.  Mom kneels and rubs the white tombstone in reverence.  Dad stands somberly by.  Comedy Central comedians John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are holding a joint rally in four weeks at the National Mall, not a mile away, that will draw a vast 20-and 30-something crowd; a crowd that has been insulated from these wars and the political process because there is no draft or required universal service.  Today the war in Afghanistan goes on with little impact on the middle and professional class as the working and underclass fight our wars. The recent Memorial Day showing at our local York, Maine library of Taking Chance with Kevin Bacon brings this fact home (http://www.hbo.com/movies/taking-chance/index.html).

We see a wife cut flowers to make a bouquet for a pot to lay at a gravestone.  From a distance we see he died in 2006.  Her memories and love do not die.  We see an old graying black man sitting on a milk crate as a witness.  He rests his hands and chin on his cane.  He wipes his eyes.  Did he lose a son or a daughter?  We do not disturb his vigil, but we get close enough to see it was his wife’s gravestone; she died in May of this year. 

We step lightly on freshly turned dirt.  A female director at ANC and a male colonel notice us and approach.  I’ve got to tell you this story.  The ground you are standing next to is that of a recently reburied soldier who died three years ago.  His soldier roommate, who was just killed, wanted to be buried next to his friend.  In a magnanimous gesture, the family of the soldier from Wisconsin, who died three years ago, agreed to have him reburied at ANC in time for Monday’s funeral service.  I can’t imagine a greater gesture of love and respect for the recently killed soldier’s wife, children, and parents.

As is often the case, Abraham Lincoln said it best at Gettysburg nearly a century and a half ago about why we honor these soldiers.  

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.