Shaffer
05-27-03, 09:06 AM
The marble steps were wet with rain, the showers falling in the early hours on the living and the dead, and at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday morning, the bugle player sounded out a dirge that united those who were no more with those who came to remember.
The dirge was taps, the 24-note melody that has accompanied military funerals since the Civil War, and the man placing the red and white wreath at the marble tomb was President Bush. The nation's most prominent service on the first Memorial Day since the Iraq war was overflowing with more than 5,000 spectators despite skies as somber as the ceremony. The trees dripped water, the grass and muddy burial ground sodden with it, and the tiny flags planted at each marble marker seemed especially forlorn.
The shadow of a war just ended gave particular poignancy to a day when so much attention often is paid to wars of the more distant past.
"On Memorial Day, Americans place flags on military graves, walk past a wall of black granite in Washington, D.C., and many families think of a face and voice they miss so much," Bush told a standing-room-only crowd at the tomb's amphitheater, alluding to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall, where later in the day thousands would gather for another observance. "From the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan, to the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, to the trials of world war, to the struggles that made us a nation, today we recall that liberty is always the achievement of courage."
As memorials unfolded across town and across the country, some including a moment of silence for the men and women still on duty in Iraq, Bush spoke with a backdrop of three huge U.S. flags. He was joined on stage by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others.
The crowd seated in front of them came from all over the nation, from Jerry Wheatley, an electrician from Kansas, to Gloria Kotila and Nancy Blume, who made the trek from tiny Dassel, Minn., population 1,500. A moment of silence also was observed in honor of soldiers in Iraq. The latest war was on the mind of many gathered at the cemetery and on the Mall, some of whom said they felt powerless watching the televised images of war.
"There's not a whole lot we can do, but we can be here," said Karen Mathias, a Silver Spring Web designer who was at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. "It's not just a day to sit around or go to sales. It makes an impact to be down here."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42073-2003May26?language=printer
The dirge was taps, the 24-note melody that has accompanied military funerals since the Civil War, and the man placing the red and white wreath at the marble tomb was President Bush. The nation's most prominent service on the first Memorial Day since the Iraq war was overflowing with more than 5,000 spectators despite skies as somber as the ceremony. The trees dripped water, the grass and muddy burial ground sodden with it, and the tiny flags planted at each marble marker seemed especially forlorn.
The shadow of a war just ended gave particular poignancy to a day when so much attention often is paid to wars of the more distant past.
"On Memorial Day, Americans place flags on military graves, walk past a wall of black granite in Washington, D.C., and many families think of a face and voice they miss so much," Bush told a standing-room-only crowd at the tomb's amphitheater, alluding to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall, where later in the day thousands would gather for another observance. "From the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan, to the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, to the trials of world war, to the struggles that made us a nation, today we recall that liberty is always the achievement of courage."
As memorials unfolded across town and across the country, some including a moment of silence for the men and women still on duty in Iraq, Bush spoke with a backdrop of three huge U.S. flags. He was joined on stage by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others.
The crowd seated in front of them came from all over the nation, from Jerry Wheatley, an electrician from Kansas, to Gloria Kotila and Nancy Blume, who made the trek from tiny Dassel, Minn., population 1,500. A moment of silence also was observed in honor of soldiers in Iraq. The latest war was on the mind of many gathered at the cemetery and on the Mall, some of whom said they felt powerless watching the televised images of war.
"There's not a whole lot we can do, but we can be here," said Karen Mathias, a Silver Spring Web designer who was at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. "It's not just a day to sit around or go to sales. It makes an impact to be down here."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42073-2003May26?language=printer