The final honor

[AP photo] Fireworks and Washington, worthy backdrops for the Iwo Jima Memorial.

By JERRY V. HAINES

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 11, 2001

Beauty is the counterpoint to sorrow at Arlington National Cemetery, where even in death a nation's military heroes remain in formation.

This is Arlington National Cemetery -- until this year, probably the main reason people in other parts of the country thought of Arlington, Va., at all.

"We live in Arlington," my wife and I would tell strangers, adding for clarification, "As in "Cemetery.' " Now we say, "As in "Pentagon.' "

For like the Pentagon, the cemetery lies just inside the state line, linked by bridges across the Potomac to the mall, museums and monuments of Washington, D.C. It is not the nation's largest military cemetery, nor is it the oldest. But it is the one most associated in the American mind with the rifle volleys, the presentation of the folded flag and the playing of the bugler's mournful last goodbye and eternal lullaby.

[AP photo] Soldiers stand guard to the Tomb of the Unknowns.

He continues this pattern for the duration of his 30-minute watch. He neither talks nor smiles, nor does he deviate from his path.

The monument itself is 50 tons of white Colorado marble. Beneath it rest the remains of three unidentified servicemen, one each from the two world wars and from the Korean conflict. There is a fourth crypt, but it now is empty, as the remains of the Vietnam War unknown soldier were identified in 1998 through DNA testing.

Toward the end of the sentinel's watch, his relief and the sergeant of the guard approach from the side of the amphitheater that adjoins the tomb. Like the sentinel, they march slowly and deliberately toward the tomb.

The sergeant inspects the relief's rifle, then his uniform -- all with that same sort of square-cornered ritual movement.

The slap of hand against weapon sounds solid, reassuring. It is inconceivable that the new guard would have lint on his uniform, but were the sergeant to find it, one suspects he would flick it off with great ceremony and administer a chewing-out citing specific provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Backstage the guard can relax in the amphitheater and talk with visitors about his job, punctuating his sentences with sharp clicks of his metal cleats as he shifts his weight. He is a member of the Third U.S. Infantry -- the famed Old Guard -- stationed nearby at Fort Myer, he explains.

Why the 21 paces, the 21-second pause?

They are related to the 21-gun salute and similar honors.

Does anyone ever flunk the sarge's inspection?

Yes, it is not merely a ritual.

Do you wear a wool uniform in all seasons?

Yes.

How do you manage that in the summer?

We think cool thoughts.

[Times art: Jeff Goertzen] Click map to enlarge.

Most of the tombstones are stingy with information: name, rank, branch of service, date of birth, date of death, religion. Some are identified as the spouse of the service member also buried there.

There is no space for the rest of their stories; no room to show that he loved green beans, that she played the trombone, that he could recite all of the state capitals, that she could read Hebrew, that they fell in love on their first date, that they left children behind.

[Photo: Jeff Greenberg] Road signs point visitors toward the major memorials at the cemetery.

From here groups march off together but, from a distance, they begin to resemble earthworms as they stretch out along the paths, contract to hear their guide's explanation at a particular grave, then stretch out again.

Frequent signs remind them to maintain "silence and respect." "This is an active cemetery," cautions another. This is not an oxymoron but a reference to the average of 24 funeral services conducted each day.

Persons wishing to locate a particular grave can do so by checking with the staff at the visitors center, who usually can direct them to the site within minutes. Only a portion of the graves registry has been computerized; most inquiries entail searches though drawers of index cards.

With some exceptions, there is no discrimination by rank in the organization of the tombs: Officers and enlisted now sleep in the same quarters. Sailors rest near Marines, and it is hard to resist the feeling that there must be some good-natured ribbing going on, even in the afterlife.

Some visitors travel the paths via Tourmobile, whose guides note points of general interest: the grave of boxer (and World War II volunteer) Joe Louis; the memorial to the shuttle astronauts killed on the Challenger; the grave of Daniel "Chappie" James, the first African-American to become a four-star general; the mast from the battleship Maine, whose sinking triggered the Spanish-American War; the grave of Abner Doubleday, purportedly the inventor of baseball, but also the officer who ordered the first Union shots fired in response to the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter. The Tourmobile stops at the Kennedy grave site and allows people to disembark and to pay their respects. John F. Kennedy and his widow, Jacqueline, lie beneath large blocks of Massachusetts granite with their two infant children. (To answer a question frequently asked of the guides, John Jr. is not buried here; his ashes were scattered at sea.)

Though dignified and moving, by usual memorial standards the JFK site is unostentatious. There is a wall at the edge of the grave-site plaza engraved with some of his memorable quotations, but it is a low wall, permitting a grand vista of the Potomac, Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The "eternal flame" is not much larger than the fire in a restaurant stove.

The nearby grave of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy is even less fancy: a simple cross at the bottom of a green hill, opposite a rectangular pool. Dragonflies skim its surface, then fly off.

The building above the Kennedy graves often is called the Lee Mansion, but officially it is Arlington House. Giving its name to the cemetery and, indeed, the county, it was built by George Washington Parke Custis, a grandson of Martha Washington from her first marriage. He named it "Arlington" after the Custis family estate in eastern Virginia.

Custis intended the home to be a place to honor George Washington, the man who had raised him, and so Custis filled it with Washington memorabilia. In his will, Custis left the building and the grounds to his daughter, who was the wife of then-Lt. Robert E. Lee. The Lees lived together at Arlington House for 30 years.

In 1861, of course, Lee had to choose between his beloved state and the federal government, and we all know his decision. Soon, with the general in Richmond and Union troops threatening, Mrs. Lee fled. Ultimately, the Union Army occupied the property, appropriating it as a headquarters.

The federal government subsequently declared that Mrs. Lee had forfeited the property in 1864 by failing to appear to pay her taxes. And shortly thereafter, in a dramatically symbolic gesture, a small section of the land was set aside for the burial of Union war dead.

The government's heavy-handed action ultimately was reversed 18 years later by the Supreme Court, but by then, hundreds of graves had been dug. The Lee family accepted a monetary settlement rather than reclaim the estate.

If you look out from the great house, you can see why its loss was such a sorrow to the Lees. It has one of the best possible views of Washington. Appropriately, now interred at this ideal vantage point is Pierre L'Enfant, designer of the federal city.

[Photo: Jeff Greenberg] Visitors to Arlington National Cemetery gather around the gravesite of President John F. Kennedy.

* * *

Two sites often associated with the cemetery actually lie just outside its fences. The Netherlands Carillon, a 1954 gift from that country, is a tower rising 127 feet. The keyboard is at the 83-foot level, which is accessible by visitors via a long staircase, but only during live concerts. (In the colder months, a computer replaces the musician.)

The carillonneur sits in close proximity to the 50 bells, the heavy, low-pitched ones below him and the smaller, higher-pitched ones above. America the Beautiful is particularly stirring when played on a carillon.

And next to the carillon is the Marine Corps War Memorial, better known as the Iwo Jima Memorial. Here is a larger-than-life statue, capturing the famous photograph of the 1945 flag-raising on Mount Suribachi. The statue symbolizes all of the battles of the Corps, the major ones of which are noted on the statue's base, along with Adm. Chester Nimitz's tribute, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue."

If you continue walking past the Iwo Jima statue, you soon arrive in Rosslyn, an Arlington County commercial district whose office towers give workers a grand view of Georgetown and what now seems an alarmingly close view of jetliners swooping along the Potomac toward the Reagan National runway.

Rosslyn also is home to the Newseum, which, despite its unfortunately cutesy name, houses serious exhibits explaining the history and functioning of the news business. The second floor includes mockup TV studios where visitors may see themselves on screen as correspondents, sportscasters or meteorologists.

A current exhibit displays poster-size versions of the famous wire service photos from Sept. 11 and the subsequent stressful days.

In the Potomac at the edge of Rosslyn is Theodore Roosevelt Island, an ideal place to pause and reflect. A short footbridge leads across the Virginia-D.C. line (which is actually the river's Virginia shoreline) to a little patch of splendid isolation. The island is within pager range of the command centers and situation rooms of the nation's capital, but if the pager doesn't ring, visitors can tread the wooden walkways through the marshes without getting their feet wet, forgetting about everything except the lizard who is eyeing them or the heron who is pretending not to. There also is a memorial (this is Washington, after all) celebrating the life of the island's namesake.

Many visitors to Arlington Cemetery stop also at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Washington Mall. Particularly touching is the 1993 statue there honoring the work of military women in that war. In it, one nurse, like the Madonna in Michelangelo's Pieta, cradles a stricken soldier; a second one kneels nearby, holding a helmet. A third nurse looks skyward, seeking help from above -- a helicopter, perhaps, or something from beyond the sky.

A second statue depicts three battle-weary soldiers. It was erected as a compromise after some people argued that the now famous memorial wall by Maya Ying Lin was a depressing, unpatriotic hole in the ground.

The memorial itself has a striking effect on visitors. They approach chatting, jostling, even laughing. But then they start down the gentle ramp of the memorial, looking at the more than 58,000 names chiseled on the black granite walls.

The visitors follow the gentle decline and disappear below the ground line; they grow quiet. They see the flowers left by individual mourners, the miniature flags, the people stretching or kneeling, searching for particular names. Some of these people -- those who have found a name, those merely passing by -- start to cry.

On a day last month, a small child looked at the wall of names and asked, "Daddy, are those the people who died in the building?"

It is an understandable confusion. True, war has changed since the first Civil War interment at Arlington, and it is now fought in different places against different kinds of enemies and with new techniques and weapons.

But all wars unfortunately have one thing in common: names on stone tablets.

- Freelance writer Jerry V. Haines lives in Arlington.

If you go

Getting there: Typical round-trip air fare Tampa to Washington's Reagan National Airport (which actually is in Arlington) is about $160 on several carriers.

Getting around: Arlington National Cemetery has its own Metro subway stop on the system's Blue Line. The Netherlands Carillon and Marine Corps Memorial are a short walk from the Rosslyn station, which is served by both the Blue and Orange Lines. By car the cemetery is reached from Washington via the Memorial Bridge; from Virginia via Route 50 or the George Washington Parkway. Parking is $1.25 per hour for the first three hours, then $2.00 per hour.

Visiting Arlington National Cemetery:

The cemetery is open every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., October through March; 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., April through September. Tourmobiles run frequently from the visitors center. Various Tourmobile packages are available, but a cemetery-only tour costs $5.25. To locate a particular grave, stop at the special desk in the visitors center to obtain the section and grave number and directions on how to reach it. Graves are cataloged by date of burial, so have that information available. In the case of common names, it is advisable also to know branch of service, place of death and next of kin. Phone (703) 607-8052. The Tomb of the Unknowns is guarded at all hours, in all weather. There is no fee to enter the cemetery.

Arlington House (enter via Arlington Cemetery): Open 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., October through March; 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., April through September. No admission fee. Phone (703) 557-0613.

The Newseum: 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. Phone toll-free 1-888-639-7386 or (703) 284-3544. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Mondays and some major holidays. No admission fee.

Theodore Roosevelt Island: Enter from the northbound lane of George Washington Parkway (free two-hour parking available) or via the pedestrian bridge from Rosslyn. Phone (703) 289-2500. Open each day from dawn to dusk. No entrance fee.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Constitution Avenue, Washington, near the Lincoln Memorial. Accessible 8 a.m. to midnight every day except Christmas. Phone (202) 426-6841. No entrance fee. Books showing where to find particular inscribed names are available at each end of the ramp.

Where to stay:

Hyatt Arlington, 1325 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, toll-free 1-866-333-8881 or (703) 525-1234, fax (703) 908-4790. Doubles from $119.

Key Bridge Marriott, 1401 Lee Highway, toll-free 1-800-228-9290 or (703) 524-6400, fax (703) 524-8964. Doubles from $79.

Where to eat:

Cafe Asia, 1550 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, (703) 741-0870 (budget-priced pan-Asian place manages to do several exotic cuisines well; a bit loud). 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. (but to 1:30 a.m. in the sushi bar) Friday and Saturday; 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday.

Mezza-9, 1325 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, (703) 276-8999 (gimmicky name reflects both its Middle Eastern orientation and its location within the Hyatt; moderately priced, given its upscale treatment of Lebanese favorites). Open every day for breakfast and dinner; lunch Monday through Friday.

Pho-75, 1721 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, (703) 525-7355 (eat a lot for less than $6; large bowls of fragrant Vietnamese beef noodle soup; versions 11 and 12 are least challenging for the tripe-averse; try the salty plum soda). Open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day.

Red Hot and Blue, 1600 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, (703) 276-7427 (Memphis-style barbecue that's surprisingly good for a place so clean). Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Tivoli, 1700 N Moore St. (above Rosslyn Metro station), Arlington, (703) 524-8900 (often overlooked by Washington's restaurant reviewers, but offering well-executed Italian meals in a quiet, upper-floor setting; moderate to expensive). Lunch and dinner Monday through Friday; dinner only Saturday; closed Sunday.

For more information:

Arlington Cemetery, (703) 695-3250, www.arlingtoncemetery.org. Also, www.nps.gov for facilities administered by the National Park Service.

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