On Hallowed Ground

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY for a funeral. The last of the season’s cherry blossoms drifted on a cool breeze, which carried the
scent of cut grass and wet stone over Arlington National Cemetery. Somewhere in the distance, the early morning mowing subsided,
soon to be overtaken by the all-day crack of rifles, the rattle of horse-drawn caissons, and the mournful sound of Taps floating
among the tombstones.

Along Eisenhower Drive, as far as the eye could see, the grave markers formed into bone-white brigades, climbed from the flats
of the Potomac River and scattered over the green Virginia hills in perfect order. They reached Arlington’s highest point,
where they encircled an old cream-colored mansion with thick columns and commanding views of the cemetery, the river, and
the city beyond. The mansion’s flag, just lowered to half-staff, signaled that it was time to start another day of funerals,
which would add more than twenty new conscripts to Arlington’s army of the dead, now more than 300,000 strong.

This day at Arlington—May 10, 2005—would be much like any other, with funerals taking place from morning until evening. Most
of the ceremonies would be small affairs honoring the aging veterans of World War II and Vietnam. Other burials would be for
young combatants returning from Afghanistan or Iraq, now headed for Section 60 of the cemetery, where their numbers had grown
in recent years. Every funeral, run by specialty units from the uniformed services, was made memorable by the solemn ritual
and the attention to detail that crisply pressed young soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, or coastguardsmen brought to the
assignment—carrying caskets, firing salutes, slow-marching in formation, driving caissons, folding flags, and offering comfort
to friends and family around the grave.

The historian might have been describing Arlington. Since the time of Thucydides, societies have developed countless ways
of honoring their war dead—by building monuments to those they could not recover, by elevating one unknown warrior to stand
for all who sacrificed, by designating holidays for decorating graves with flowers, by establishing national cemeteries on
foreign soil to recognize those who died far from home.

It was such an effort that finally brought the members of Breaker Patrol, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division,
to Arlington for a long-delayed homecoming on May 10, 2005—exactly thirty-eight years after they disappeared in Vietnam: They
were Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Malcolm T. Miller, Marine 2nd Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer Jr., Marine Sgt. James N. Tycz, and Marine
Lance Cpl. Samuel A. Sharp Jr. All had died in a fierce fight for the high ground near Khe Sanh on May 10, 1967. While their
wounded comrades were evacuated by helicopter, it was too late for Miller, Ahlmeyer, Tycz, and Sharp—left behind but not
forgotten. Years after the war ended, forensic teams returned to the battlefield in 2002 and 2003 and recovered thirty-one
bone fragments, some teeth, and enough supporting evidence to make positive identifications of the four men. Corporal Sharp
was the first to reach home, where he was buried in his native California a few days before the Arlington ceremony. He would
be remembered at Arlington, where four caskets stood ready for burial in Section 60—one for Miller, one for Ahlmeyer, one
for Tycz, and one for unidentifiable remains representing all of the dead from Breaker Patrol.

The fourth casket containing commingled bones was on its way down to Section 60 from the chapel at Fort Myer. You could gauge
its progress by the rattle of drums drawing closer, setting the pace for a slow parade of two hundred mourners, a Marine rifle
platoon in dress blues and white trousers, a Marine band in gold braid and scarlet, and, bringing up the rear, a squadron
of Rolling Thunder—Vietnam veterans on Harleys. This mismatched procession streamed down the hills in brilliant sunlight,
turned left on Marshall Drive, and came to a halt on Bradley Drive, where the earth was laid open to make four new graves.

Six burly marines from the burial detail drew the fourth casket from a silver hearse, marched it across the grass, and stopped
by the last grave. The Marine Band struck up the Navy Hymn. The body bearers hoisted the last casket shoulder high until the
song was done, then eased it onto a catafalque, lifted away its flag, pulled the edges tight, and held it there as a Navy
chaplain began to murmur the familiar words of comfort, but these were snatched away by the sounds of life intruding from
all around the cemetery, in the drone of commuter traffic just outside the stone walls, in the whine of jets straining up
from Reagan National Airport, in the thump of helicopters lumbering to and from the Pentagon. No matter how solemn the rituals
at Arlington, life continued asserting itself from outside. And even in the cemetery, the living formed a link with all of
the dead who had gone before—by speaking their names, by recounting their acts of duty and valor, by suspending the other
imperatives of life for a few minutes of ritual and reflection. These acts convey a sort of immortality upon the dead, who
continue to live as long as they are remembered.

Out among the tombstones, the long journey of Breaker Patrol was drawing to its conclusion. A firing party unleashed a three-rifle
volley, a lone bugler stepped forward to sound Taps, and the honor guard began folding the last flag, pulling the fabric taut,
creasing it, gathering it, and passing it down the line until it formed a tight blue triangle. With a sharp salute, the flag
passed to a gunnery sergeant, who cradled it like a baby, marched it across the turf, and presented it to a chaplain. The
chaplain, in turn, passed it to a retired Marine commandant acting as next of kin for all of those in Breaker Patrol.

Last of all, the motorcycle vets padded onto the grass and knelt, one by one, at each of the caskets to retire their MIA bracelets.
Dressed in faded jeans and camouflage, the bikers looked incongruous among the spit-and-polish crowd that day, but when they
stepped up to a grave, stood straight, and snapped off a salute, you could see that they had been soldiers too, and some of
them were crying.

The scars from that war remain etched deep in Arlington’s topography, which also tells the story of the nation’s recovery
and healing, of a young country’s growing realization of its power, of its willingness to exercise that power on the world
stage through two world wars, the Korean conflict, the Cold War, Vietnam, and subsequent hostilities, each with its flashes
of glory, its moments of doubt and agony, and its added burials for Arlington, which continues to grow; from an initial 200
acres established in 1864, the national cemetery covers 624 acres today.

Few images linger in the national imagination as vividly as this hallowed ground, with its ghostly white tombstones, its deep
green turf, its gnarled trees alive with songbirds and cicadas. Almost four million people visit the place each year, to pay
homage at President Kennedy’s eternal flame on the hillside, to watch the silent, solemn changing of the guard, to walk among
the scientists, explorers, jurists, writers, spies, actors, criminals, generals, admirals, and thousands of ordinary citizen-warriors
resting at Arlington.

For many visitors, a pilgrimage to Arlington is a devotional act—to seek out a buried relative, to pay respects to a treasured
friend, to leave a promised beer or cigarette at the tomb of an Army buddy, to brush off a wife’s grave and bring her up to
date on the latest headlines. Sisters come to Arlington with photographs of brothers now gone forever; girlfriends bring bouquets
and balloons; someone hangs wind chimes in a dogwood, which ring with music when the limbs shiver. A marine’s parents drive
down from Pennsylvania, unpack their lawn chairs, set them up in Section 60, and pass a spring afternoon with their son, recently
killed in Iraq. They speak to his tombstone as if it is the most natural thing in the world. It is at Arlington, where other
pilgrims do the same thing every day.

New chapters are added daily, as new tombstones appear, twenty-five or so per day, five days a week, all year long. They continue
the narrative of war, loss, growth, and remembering, which began long before there was any honor attached to burial at Arlington.
That was when a promising colonel named Robert E. Lee lived in its cream-colored mansion, surrounded by a contingent of slaves
and 1,100 acres of choice plantation land. If not for him, there would have been no Arlington National Cemetery.