27 May 2007
Row on Row
I got up in the dark, though strictly speaking I did not have to. The plan had been to be on the hallowed ground early, with the dawn coming up, but I checked the web site and the Superintendent does not open the gates until eight. I looked at e-mail. Faluja was awake, and had added to the queue while I slept.
“In Flanders Fields, the poppies grow," started the note,
"Between the crosses, row on row.”
That is one of the poems I know by heart, and I mouthed the words as I read in the darkness against the glow of the screen.
I still thought I might sneak into Arlington Cemetery early. I purchaed flowers at the Harris Teeter grocery store that stays open all night, and then drove onto the base at Fort Myer that curls around the kidney of the cemetery. I pulled up to the wrought iron gate by the Old Chapel and read the stern words on the sign. They seem serious about security (at least at the gate) and hopping the red sandstone stone wall, even though enticingly low, is a Federal Offense.
I did not need to start Memorial Day with a beef with the MPs, so I drove the perimeter of the cemetery thinking about how to kill an hour until the living were ready to open up for business.
Pentagon North Parking was chock-full of bikes and bikers in their ominous cut-off leather vests that read "4th Division, Veterans of Foreign Wars," really quite benign. Everyone is getting old. The vets are now in their late fifties and sixties, and if the biceps are still strong, the bellies are sagging a bit and the tough biker chicks are grandmas, tattoos and all.
The ink does not age well. Or maybe that is the point.
They were at Bob and Edith's Diner, staging at the Texaco next door when I stopped to kill a half hour over eggs and grits. Some very large people were smoking and staring into space at the table next to me. Smoking inside. Amazing how things have changed.
As I was digging into the easy-overs, the bikers roared off and the very large people found someplace to go, and I suspected it might be bed. I crossed Columbia Pike against the light, and walked through the parking lot of the Safeway that went out of business and is going to be replaced with a tower big enough to cause concern at Reagan National Airport.
I put the top down on the car and drove slowly through the Arlington neighborhoods to Ft Myer, and parked the car near the Old Chapel. Three or four cars were waiting at the gate, and as I raised the top again the iron portal swung open and they passed swiftly in.
Only family can get the passes to be able to drive inside, though in a sense they are all family that lie within. I don't fuss about the walking. The pain from my knees helps remind me I am alive.
The Lockerbie Memorial is to the left, the Civil War to the right. I followed the road along the harvest of the battlefields that were cleared of the dead long after the fighting stopped and re-interred here; three unknown here under a common marker, there another under another of the smooth round stones. Unknown.
The road loops down the hill, past the new stone commemorating the Battle of the Bulge, a gift of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the People of the Netherlands. Following the contours of the hill. The stones crowd the pavement, and I found myself mouthing the names as I walked along, "Semper Fi, Sarge!"
I carried the flowers over my shoulder, as though I was on route march. A woman who had driven an old Porche 911 was seated on the grass along the way, talking matter-of-factly to a stone.
As I approached the plain under the steep bluff I cut along one of the precise diagonal rows of markers, most of them WWII veterans, who had lived beyond their war. There were many who never lived to see 1945, of course, and some whose stones bore the trifecta: WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
Passing the intersection of Arnold and MacArthur, I waved to Fred, the U2 pilot I used to work with. He is in Section 65, and one of those things happened that make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. A flight of geese crossed the section, headed southeast. They were low, and the “V” of their formation was perfect, though the flight lead had left a space or two behind him, leaving room for a missing bird.
I gaped as they passed over the trees, headed somewhere far away. Home. Where the snow has gone and the larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Turning my eyes again to the rows of stone, I oriented myself with the granite mushroom of the memorial to the Attack. Section 64.
I remember when this was raw red earth, but it is not now. The Pentagon still looms across the highway, but there is peaceful green now. There were small flags and some flowers on the graves of those I knew, so I heaped my offering with theirs, and decorated the grave of a Commander who died with them, since he had none. He had been in the Command Center a few feet away, and he is closer now.
When I was satisfied that the arrangement was as artistic as I could manage, I rose to the semblance of attention that I can still muster, and gave as crisp a salute as one can in shorts and Aloha shirt.
It was a long walk back to the top of the hill. I followed the inside of the perimeter fence since the grade was a little easier. The new Air Force Memorial now stands at the eastern end of the Navy Annex, an incongruent location. It was the best they could do after their initial attempt to place the towering Stainless Steel Coat-rack next to the Marines down the road.
They were mauled savagely in that fight, as one might expect when one takes on the entrenched spirit of Iwo Jima, and they opted to re-sculpt the brow of the Hill where Wing 10 of the Annex once stood, filled with earnest officers managing Navy manpower.
I don't know about eternity. I try to comprehend it when I make those strolls through the stones, row on row. This place will stand as it is until the river rises and there is no Congress to appropriate funds for its maintenance. That is as close to forever as I can get.
It was a good walk. It is one I need to do on Memorial Day, so I don't forget.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com