(A sample of the hundreds of thousands of wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery as part of the Wreaths Across American tribute, 2015).

My pal Point Loma wrote this morning to answer a question I asked after thousands of volunteers poured into Arlington National Cemetery to reverently (but efficiently) place hundreds of thousands of wreaths on the graves of our nation’s veterans.

My question was simple: if thousands of us placed the wreaths, who was going to pick them up when the holidays were done? Point Loma’s essay this morning provided the answer:

“Over the past couple of months, the Wreaths Across America project has captured much attention and rightfully so. Our war dead and others who made career sacrifices for the nation and freedom deserve all of our accolades – in vivo and posthumously. but once all of the wreaths have been laid and the public affairs pictures have been taken and published, what becomes of all of those wreaths who, having served their purpose, are now detritus littering the various ceremonial burial grounds across the country?

Our scout troop requires that all members perform a public service event every quarter, and the search is always on to find quality events for the scouts. In Annapolis, we know what happened today when the doughty Boy Scouts of Troop 450 in Severna Park MD assembled in the pre-dawn, zero degree wind chill this morning as prelude to removing the wreaths that had been laid in the small national cemetery at Hospital Point on the grounds of the US Naval Academy.

Once arriving at the Naval Academy and finding the cemetery, one of fourteen commissioned to accept the dead of the Civil War, we were met by Lieutenant Sam Clement, a Severna Park native and Naval Academy graduate. He was back to serve as a company officer in charge of Midshipmen (and women – what do we call them these days, Midshipeople?)

Sam’s younger brother is one of the older Life scouts in our troop, which explains the connection. As it turns out, Sam’s company had been assigned the duty to remove the wreaths from the burial grounds, and we needed a worthy project. The weather just made it more interesting. In briefing us on what was expected, Sam told us that the wreath-laying ceremony featured 300 people and 2400 wreaths, which were laid in a little over 15 minutes. I had counted heads in the parking lot at St. John’s church before we left and it came to 20 scouts and adults – it looked to be a long morning if we each had to account for 120 wreaths in an icy, hilly cemetery. Then the 20 or so midshipmen from LT Clement’s company arrived, and it turned into a true fun collaboration – scouts and Mids – excellent young people. For more shots of scouts and Mids in action, here’s a link:

https://www.troopwebhost.org/Troop450SevernaPark/

My role was to drive the various access roads in the cemetery in my stout little Toyota pickup, load up the wreaths that were being harvested from the graveyard by the scouts and Mids, and hauling them down to the dump site. It was during the initial trip that a gravestone caught my eye. It was alone and up a small rise from the rest of the graveyard. I stopped the truck and walked up to retrieve the two wreaths on the marker. When I got there, I was a little surprised to see it was Captain Edward Beach, who was a legendary submariner, a WWII and Midway veteran who went on to command the fifth US nuclear submarine, the USS Triton, who took her on a shakedown voyage and 84 days and 41,000 nautical miles later, surface off of Norfolk to re-enter port after tracing Magellan’s route – underwater. He turned this into a book: “Around the World Submerged.”

He more famously wrote the classic submarine story – “Run Silent, Run Deep”. I just saw the movie, starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, on a classic movie channel a couple of weeks ago.

(Headstone of Captain Edward Beach, USN, and his wife Ingrid).

At the top of the hill, I saw the headstone for someone that we in the Naval Intel business will immediately recognize:

(RADM Sumner Shapiro, DNI 1978-1982).

As it was for many of us, he was the DNI when I was commissioned and after graduation from AFAITC in Lowry where I earned the 1630 designator. I got to meet “Shap” in 1998 when Jake decided that we as a community needed to have an OPINTEL summit to try to capture what that had been all about, a culture and mindset that had reached its zenith in the late 80s before the fall of the Soviet Union, and then had suffered as a vestige of Jointness and “watering down” as an unintended consequence of the mandate of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation requiring joint service for advancement.

Under the auspices of then Commander David Rosenberg, USNR, the conference was duly convened at NMITC in Dam Neck. It was an interesting several days – the keynote speaker was Mac, and he was followed by the Chairman, Frank Notz, who was literally on his last legs suffering from terminal cancer. Shap provided a very engaging presentation of his original brief that he had given the CNO to sell him on OSIS, right down to the original vu-graphs he used. He was engaging and charming, and his vision was ultimately very successful, putting at least three generations of 1630s through the OPINTEL wringer – OSIS (Ocean Surveillance Information System), OSIS Baseline and OBU (OSIS Baseline Upgrade). The conference resulted in a book by Dave and his fellow raconteur Chris Ford – The Admiral’s Advantage. If anyone is interested, it is available on Amazon:

(The Admiral’s Advantage).

Since Dave is a co-worker at the same think tank in town, I bought a copy. He swears up and down that he hasn’t made a nickel off of this. I’m looking forward to his next book, which is going to be a good one. Unfortunately for most of us, Dave’s best work can only be read by three of four cleared people in the US, which might not include the President; and then, only in places whose security surpasses even that of the most draconian of SCIFs.
Very near Shapiro’s grave was another, very ornate headstone:

(ADM “Bud” Zumwalt, USN).

If you can’t read the fine print under the epitaph, it says “Reformer.” Certainly, many of the things he was trying to do to the service in the mid-70s has led us to where we as a service are now, for better or for worse. I will leave it there.
Right next to Zumwalt was a very interesting headstone:

(Jim and Marilyn Lovell, awaiting final departure).

Gentle readers will recall that Jim Lovell was the mission commander of the ill-fated Apollo XIII mission, as portrayed by Tom Hanks. As a space junkie, I remember staying up all night to watch Neill Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon, and being glued to my seat in school and after during Apollo XIII as the most brilliant and creative minds on the plant sought to save those who were in all aspects dead men from the moment that the LOX tank exploded in the service module during the cryo-stir. If you look carefully, you will see that Jim and Marilyn are not yet in residence although they have prepared the way at the top of the hill there in Hospital Point, with a great view. When you consider the odds, Jim Lovell’s last 45 years on the planet have been some kind of gift, so who can fault him for planning an end which maybe should have come back in that April in 1970?

At this point, the light had come on and I realized that many of our nation’s naval war heroes had or will have had chosen the cemetery at Hospital Point as there place of final repose, with a nice view of the Severn, as opposed to Arlington with its attendant traffic noise and the comings and goings of jets in and out of National. Among the 2400 or so graves, there are some very delicious possibilities to further explore naval history and our heroes in one small, confined space. I saw lots of famous names. Here’s another one that caught my roving eye:

(ADM Arleigh “31-knot” Burke).

The cemetery is not just a ceremonial spot, it is a living thing in that the honored dead are being interred as a matter of course, minus the pomp and circumstance of the Old Guard at Arlington. I also happened upon the grave of ADM Chuck Larson, who passed just last year. He is just down the road from Arleigh Burke. To be buried in Annapolis, I’m sure that one has to have been a Naval Academy graduate but there is no doubt a lot more to it. Of note, John Paul Jones is interred in the Academy’s chapel. That’s fitting since he was neither an American or an Academy grad so definitely not eligible for Hospital Point.

At any rate, I went out reluctantly to do a cold chore this morning with my son and his fellow Boy Scouts to clean up someone else’s mess. In the process, I discovered something special that I was not prepared to find. It left me with a sense of wonder.”

I am with Point Loma on this one. They placed wreaths at the National Cemetery at Culpeper this year as well. Next year, I vow to help put them down- and pick them up.

Copyright 2014 Point Loma and Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303