My father is buried there. Greatest father a child could ever wish for. Whenever I revisit where I grew up, I always make a trip to his gravesite. As I walk past all the stones, the history is overwhelming.
Many don’t know the mansion at the top of the hill inside Arlington National Cemetery is Robert E. Lee’s home.
At the outbreak of the War, the Lee family stayed away from their home which looks down on the DC Capitol from the Virginia side.
The first Union soldiers to die in battle were transported to the Leee estate and buried in their backyard as a message to General Lee that he was responsible for these deaths, deaths of soldiers that he once led as their General when the country had one army.
That’s how Arlington National Cemetery came to be.
I visited there a couple of summers ago and the Tomb Of The Unknown. No words. I’m from a military family.
The last time I was at Arlington for Memorial Day I was taking the slow walk, meandering from path to path, trying to choke back tears. Off in the distance there was a headstone, no different from the others but overlaid with flowers and mementos. I went to it and read the name. Audie Murphy.