One summer time, a few years in the past, our household went to Washington, D.C. We had quite a lot of locations we needed to go to, together with the Smithsonian, the Washington Monument, the White Home, Congress, and the Lincoln Memorial.
We had no concept that one of the shifting locations we’d go to could be Arlington Nationwide Cemetery.
The primary soldier, from the Civil Struggle, was buried there in 1864. By the tip of that yr, greater than 7,000 troopers had been laid to relaxation in its soil. Even those that had died earlier than its institution started to be moved to its hallowed grounds. Because of this, the cemetery has change into the burial floor for casualties from all of America’s wars—from the Revolutionary Struggle to the newest of conflicts.
In 1929, it was the location of the primary nationwide Memorial Day vacation. As we speak, roughly 400,000 service women and men at the moment are buried on its 639 acres.
Past the 1000’s of white crosses dotting the panorama and marking the graves, we noticed the burial websites of numerous historic figures together with President Taft and Supreme Courtroom Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Thurgood Marshall. There was the memorial to the crew of the Area Shuttle Challenger. We had been moved by the flame that at all times burns on the web site of President John F. Kennedy’s grave, and the close by web site of his brother, Bobby.
However nothing ready us for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Established in 1921 as a burial place for the Unknown Soldier of World Struggle I, unknown troopers from World Struggle II and the Korean Struggle had been quickly added. An unknown soldier from the Vietnam Struggle was buried there with full navy honors on Memorial Day in 1984.
The tomb itself merely says, “Right here rests in honored glory an American soldier identified however to God.”
In honor of all of those that died in fight defending our freedoms, there’s a round the clock guard on the web site of the tomb. A sentinel from the Third U.S. Infantry maintains the vigil across the clock. In a symbolic mirroring of the 21-gun salute, the guard paces 21 steps down the mat earlier than the tomb, pauses for 21 seconds, and returns. The altering of the guard takes place each hour, 24 hours a day, twelve months a yr, rain or shine.
Once we had been there, it was full of vacationers, however you possibly can have heard a pin drop. The sacred nature of what the place stood for, the solemn nature of the guard, the setting of the cemetery itself, lent itself to one thing that felt sacred, one thing that deserved honor and respect.
Regardless of who you had been or the place you had been from, it was pure, it was good, and it was proper.
As we speak is Memorial Day, after we keep in mind those that gave their lives for our nation, notably in battle or from wounds they suffered in battle. A lot of them lie in Arlington.
So keep in mind and provides honor.
You would possibly even need to Google a video clip of the altering of the guard.
James Emery White
Editor’s Notice
This weblog is shared yearly on Memorial Day. We hope that you simply loved studying it once more.
