Almost 21 years ago, when I was in high school (1991), I went on a trip to Washington DC. To this day I still look on some of my photos that I took that week with awe and joy. As a sixteen year old kid this was my first trip without my parents other than to Boy Scout camp or to a church event and defiantly my first time being 1000 miles from my parents and home.
Well the week was great and it gave me a new found love for the United States, a love that I am sure will come out the more and more as I blog about these things. This trip had me going to DC with a teacher that I knew but I was never in his class, Mr. Stanford. He was a Social Studies Teacher and the Golf Coach, tough life right. Well as the week went on we had our last day that was a free day and was open for us to explore the city. Well Mr. Stanford wanted to tour the White House, which we did, but in order to get tickets we had to leave EARLY… he had us out of the hotel and our first stop was to Arlington National Cemetery.
To this day I am sure we snuck in early because of two reasons. One I now know the Cemetery opens for visitors at 8:00am and closes at 7:00pm, these times are VERY strict and when they say it closes at 7:00pm it means you better be on your way out or a nice Army Specialist lets you know that the Cemetery closed an hour and a half earlier that evening, yeah that happened… Recently… I am just saying that gate was open when we walked in, but that is another story for another time. The second reason I am relatively sure that we snuck in was that I remember shortly after we entered into the Cemetery we heard revelry playing… Yeah it was that early.
As a 16 year old boy I did not really understand the value of the sacred ground I was about to enter and even though the 16 year old in me would never have admitted it, what I learned that day changed my life. We walked around and we saw the Tomb of the Unknowns, the grave site of the Challenger Seven, and of course Jack and Bobby. We did all the touristy things. But as we walked out I stopped and I looked around, in all four directions, as far as the eye could see there were rows of white headstones. As I look back on it as the man I am today I wondered why I had never thought about this before… Each one of those headstones is a different man or woman.
As the years have passed I have been back many times, sometimes with a purpose, some times to do the touristy thing and other times just as a reminder of all the men and women who served our great nation, and who many of them never got to enjoy the world without war.
Well let’s fast forward a few years to 2006, I was in DC visiting my friend Tony, he was still in the US Coast Guard stationed just outside DC and so I had flown up to visit. We went to Arlington this time to do the tourist thing, after we went to the Arlington house, being the good Boy Scouts that we are we got lost trying to find the Tomb of the Unknowns. As we walked around, we saw deer roaming the grounds and we looked at all of the unique tomb stones on top of the hill and that was when it hit me, every one of these stones represented someone, here was someone’s father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter. This was not just some National Park that I was visiting this is THE memorial to what is so great about our nation, our fellow citizens who put it all on the line in the service of the United States. We saw the grave sites of famous men, like John Basilone, USMC who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in the early days of World War 2, or his fellow Marines Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes and Michael Strank, who raised our beautiful flag on top of Mount Suribachi. Generals John J. Pershing, Omar Bradley, Maxwell Taylor, Anthony McAuliffe, and Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, Jr.. There are of course Astronauts Roger B. Chaffee, Stuart Roosa, Gus Grissom, Pete Conrad, and the memorials to the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia. One of my heroes from World War 2 General Robert F. Sink and a fellow Texan Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in World War 2. There are men who served and then went on to be great sports figures, the boxer Joe Louis and Dwight F. Davis- founder of the Davis Cup in Tennis and a fellow Phi Delt.
When I first went to Arlington I thought of these GREAT men that are buried there but it was that day in 2006 that I realized that there were other men, who some of which are very distinguished and others that had served. Some had given their lives for our country, while others had to come home and adjust to life as best as they could.
This past summer (2012) I went to DC for my Fraternity’s conference and I had the great pleasure to walk around Arlington with a very good friend. He is a retired Army Lt. Colonel and as much of a history nut as I am. Mark pointed out a few grave sites of some of his friends and I made a personal trip as well. As I walked around I would randomly stop and take a picture for some of the grave sites that I photographed I have done a little research, which means I saw the name in one of my pictures and I went to the Arlington Cemetery website and looked them up:
Colonel Nick Rowe—Col Rowe was a POW in Vietnam, escaped his captors after 5 years and returned to serve his country for the next 21 years. Col Rowe was killed by Terrorists in 1989.
Colonel David Haskell Hackworth— Most Decorated US Solider a few of his awards…34 Air Medals, 10 Silver Stars, and 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses.
Colonel Andrew Irvine Lyman-- an Annapolis graduate that served in the United States Marine Corps during World War 2 and Vietnam.
David E. Hayden— He was a Medic, a Pharmacist's Mate Third Class, during World War 1. He was assigned to a Marine Unit in France. He received the Medal of Honor for rushing out onto the field of battle to save Corporal Creed under intense machine guns fire. He bandaged up his brother in arms on the battle field and then carried him back to safety.
The last person on the list has a special place in my book, about 11 or 12 years ago I was visiting with my grandfather who was telling me about his time in the US Navy during World War 2. In one of my grandfather’s stories he was getting a ride from San Francisco, CA to Pearl Harbor, HI to join his ship. He caught a ride onboard the new USS Yorktown CV-10. When he boarded the ship he saw that the ship was commanded by Captain Joseph James Clark. Now many of you are wondering two things, one who the hell is J.J. Clark, and two why would someone remember a commanding officer 60 years after catching a ride on his ship? Well let me tell you, Jocko Clark is my grandfather’s cousin. They are both from the town of Pryor Creek, Oklahoma. My grandfather grew up hearing the tails of his cousin as Jocko was the first Cherokee to graduate from Annapolis and when he retired from the Navy as a four star Admiral he is the highest ranking Cherokee in the US military. Before my one of my trips to DC in early 2012 I did a little research on Jocko and where he was buried, since the first time I found his grave site I have been back and I plan to return to it every time I am in DC. Jocko is my only known family member that is buried in Arlington but I am sure as I do more research there will be other family members that are laid to rest there with their brothers in arms.
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