In Memory Of...

Each year, and especially on Memorial Day, thousands of people make a pilgrimage to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Back when I headed the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C., and needed a quiet place to sort out my thoughts, I would often drive out to that monument. As a Vietnam veteran, I felt a kinship with the fallen heroes who lie there.

Usually my visit would be in the early evening, and as I wheeled up the path, the marble monolith would glow a soft rose in the rays of the setting sun.

The only sound would be the metallic click of a lone sentinel's boots as he paced back and forth before the tomb. I'd watch respectfully at a distance as the guard, stiff-backed and stem, would take 21 precise steps, then halt for 21 seconds (both acts symbolizing a 21-gun salute) before executing a sharp "shoulder arms," placing his rifle on his shoulder away from the tomb so that he stood between it and any threat. 

Every day of the year, in muggy noon heat or midnight snow, around the clock, a volunteer soldier guards the tomb. Each has met a personal test as the best of the elite First Battalion (Reinforced), Third U.S. infantry ("The Old Guard") in honoring our four unidentified dead from World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam, who sleep here under the inscription: 

Here rests in honored glory
An American
Soldier
Known but to God

The tomb was created soon after the First World War. On March 4, 1921, Congress, following the custom of our allies, called for the burial of an unknown serviceman as a tribute to all Americans killed in battle. So it was that the bodies of four unidentified men who fell in combat were brought to Chalons-sur-Marne, France. Their closed caskets were placed in a public room off the town square. Then in a simple ceremony on October 24, 1921, twice-wounded Army Sgt. Edward Younger of Chicago, Illinois, chosen for the bravery that had won him decorations, set about his lonely task of making the final selection. While a French military band outside softly played Chopin's "Funeral March," Sergeant Younger, carrying a spray of white roses, entered the dimly lit room and approached the four plain coffins. He slowly circled the row three times, then gently laid the spray on the third casket from the left, stiffened to attention and saluted.

Why did he choose that one?

"I don't really know," he is said to have answered, "but something drew me to it."

"I passed the first one, and then the second. Then something made me stop. And a voice seemed to say, 'This is a pal of yours.' I don't know how long I stood there. But finally I put the roses on the casket and went back into the sunlight."

Today, Sergeant Younger rests with the 200,000 others buried at Arlington.