Gardens of Stone

"Gardens of Stone" was Nicholas Proffit’s image of Arlington National Cemetery in his 1983 novel of the same name. In the late July heat, tourists with blank faces just like me snapped picture after digital picture of the Eternal Flame at the Kennedy grave site before they trudged uphill to the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier in this garden of stone.

After Saturday, I wouldn’t quibble over that imagery except that it is only a single dimension of a multi-dimensional experience. The dignity and respect accorded to the men and women who are buried there is clear. Signs reminding the visitor that respectful conduct is appropriate are tastefully displayed and for the most part everyone I saw behaved accordingly. Yet there was, somehow, a cognitive disconnect from the reality behind those 260,000 graves.

One reality was the memory of that frigid November morning in 1963 when two friends and I stood curbside in Washington to witness the funeral procession of a president, a memory light years removed from the flatness of the Kennedy gravesite today, a flatness broken only by the 6 inch high pedestal of the eternal flame.

The ultimate reality though is quite different. The United States has been involved in one armed conflict after another over the 141 years since Arlington was first designated as a military cemetery by Secretary of War William Stanton. With only 260,000 graves there, we seem to have gotten very good at the craft of war.

Comments

[Mike McCarthy]

> ...we seem to have gotten very good at the craft of war.

As if we like it? As if we'd rather have war than peace? As if we aren't defending ourselves?

Another grave at Arlington belongs to John Ziats, brother of Paul. John was killed in the Battle of the Bulge, where Paul won the Bronze Star. Paul was a family friend, pals with my father and a larger than life character. He was the inspiration for the "Sgt Saunders" character on the TV show "Combat" (the head writer -- Robert Pirosh -- was a PFC in Paul's squad).

Anyone who thinks Paul relished his service has missed the point. Like most veterans he hated what happened to him, and never spoke of it. He would not have used the woods "gotten very good at it."