Gratitude Monday: Quiet in the neighborhood

Last Sunday, Easter, I took Metro a couple of stops and spent a few hours in Arlington National Cemetery. It’s one of my favorite places in the D.C. area, mixing the affairs of men with nature, and it always gives me both comfort and something to think about.

As a military cemetery, Arlington got its start during the War Between the States. The property was owned by the family of Robert E. Lee’s wife (handed down from the grandson of George Washington’s wife, Martha Custis). Arlington House is beautifully situated on a hill affording spectacular views of the capital of the United States, which made it an early target for Union troops, who occupied it in May of 1861.

(Here it is on Easter of this year.)

By 1862, the Federals were in the market for places to bury their dead, and Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, eventually authorized the use of the property for military graves. A Georgian who loathed Lee for joining the Confederacy, Meigs thought it just that, by burying Union dead mere steps from Arlington House, the Lees could never live in the family home again.

Well, he was right. By the end of the war, there were hundreds of graves; these days there are 400,000. The preponderance of them are military, with spouses and children. A few politicians who felt that rooting in the Congressional trough entitled them to burial here; but no neighborhood is perfect.

I love walking among these graves, reading the markers and wondering about the stories they represent. Like this one:

Presumably, Roy van Dusen was Beatrice’s husband; the birth dates look about right. But he was a lieutenant colonel in the army and she a private first class. There are regulations against officers fraternizing with enlisted personnel; where and when did Roy and Beatrice meet?

My pal Google tells me that there was a Roy Reed van Dusen III born in 1945, and that his parents were married “between 1940 and November 1942. Roy III died in 1968, in Killeen, Texas; he’s buried in Arlington, too (although I didn’t notice his grave).

Nearby, another grave was being visited:

Not far from the robin's perch, there was another story being played out. An old man and two 30- or 40-something offspring (Son/daughter? Child and spouse?) spent considerable time beside one of the large tombstones, while I wandered about trying to track down former Secretary of State Alexander Haig's permanent resting place. (He was also a four-star general in the Army, and his middle name was Meigs, so he's entitled.) After they left, I looked at the stone, one of those large ones. The name on it was a woman's, with the "beloved wife" designator. The space for the service member was blank, so I'm deducing that the older man will at some point lie there as well.

Here’s another story of immeasurable grief, captured in just a few words and a date:

But you see other stories at Arlington. While I was meandering around Section 30, I heard the distinctive sound of a Harley and noted a lone motorcyclist wheeling past. Later on, I walked back along Section 36 and saw the bike parked in the road, with the rider midway down one of the rows, leaning against one gravestone and contemplating another. I didn’t get close enough to read the name; I’ll do that another time.

Because I plan on visiting regularly. And I'm grateful that I can do that, because it's my neighborhood.