John / Billybob
Many thanks for posting this.
a man whose name never made headline news
My favorite kind of guy.
Tradition, Honor, Courage
Godspeed Marine
Semper Fi...
Thanks John
TT
Thank you. Our best for the upcoming election!
There was much we did not have in common -- faith (they were agnostic) & politics (compared to me they were somewhat liberal) -- but my friend and his wife (both WWII+ military) will forever remain in my memory as true Americans and remembered fondly. I pray for their souls, and whenever business takes me to D.C. I try to make time to stop by Arlington National Cemetery and pay my respects.
Here lies the ashes of a very good man (and Carolyn, his, wife, on the obverse).
My father is buried at Arlington. As an adolescent young man watching his flag draped casket braced over his grave, the seven Marines fired their rifles in three volleys with one ordering the shooting in a clear crisp voice, letting everyone present know a sacrificed life would not be forgotten.
It was years later on one of many return visits to his grave that I learned the first men buried in Arlington were some of the first Union soldiers that had lost their lives in Civil War battles in Virginia. General Lee's home grounds were chosen for their burial to send him a message. They buried those soldiers nearby his house overlooking the Potomac and Washington.
My regiment has lost over fifty men since 9/11.
That is not many... until you consider our size. Perhaps a dozen of them are in that sanctified site, where their remains lie alongside those that once housed similar spirits.
The hard part, of course, is continuing to serve after the uniform is hung in the mothball-smelling closet. Sounds like your friend served, one way or another, his whole life. And left behind a few who were privileged to know him.
And now his bones, too, will lie among the nation's greatest sons'.
That is not a bad coda to one's mortal days.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
the infowarrior