Decades ago on a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, I especially sought out two sites: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the grave of a very well known soldier.
This is brought to mind by the recent incident at the solemn Unknown Soldier memorial, where Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, his wife, and aides were reprimanded by an Army sentinel while taking Veterans Day photos and chatting. Even some laughter was heard.
Barked the soldier: “All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times.”
This embarrassment took place 105 years to the day after President Warren G. Harding officiated there at the interment of an unidentified battle casualty from World War I, exhumed from an American military cemetery in France.
Today, the Arlington tomb site holds three unknown soldiers. Two were added later, from World War II and the Korean War.
The memorial is particularly somber, especially with the protective presence of handpicked soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment who guard it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Their uniforms are impeccably pressed and their steps militarily precise; it is quickly apparent that this is no place for idle chatter.
So believed Specialist Thomas Iglesias, the soldier who admonished the Hegseth group – and who the following day was awarded a commendation medal by the defense secretary for unflinchingly doing his duty.
In his 1921 remarks there, President Harding said of that first unknown soldier, “We know not whence he came, but only that his death marks him with the everlasting glory of an American dying for his country.”
Another of my Arlington visits that day years ago was to the far plainer grave of a soldier who did not die in service to his country, but was the most decorated combat soldier in World War II – Audie Murphy.
Murphy, who died in a small-plane crash in 1971, won every existing Army combat medal in his time, including the Medal of Honor.
During one action alone in France, in early 1945, Murphy, atop a burning tank, single-handedly held off a company of German soldiers, killing or wounding 50 of them.
Murphy, barely 5-feet-7 and 130 pounds, was self-effacing, describing himself as “just a friendly, sort of scrawny, freckle-faced kid from Texas.”
He once said, “I never liked being called the ‘most decorated’ soldier. There were so many guys who should have gotten medals and never did – those who were killed.”
Editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin, famous for his portrayal of GIs, said of Murphy, “Nobody wanted to be in his shoes, but nobody wanted to be unlike him, either.”
Hollywood wooed Murphy after the war, starring him in dozens of movies, mostly westerns, but the war never ended for him – he suffered for years from what was then called ‘battle fatigue” – post-traumatic stress disorder – and slept with a loaded handgun under his pillow.
There’s a telling juxtaposition in all this. As a Medal of Honor winner, Murphy was entitled to gold-leaf lettering on his headstone. But he declined it, instead asking for a simple, inconspicuous stone like most others in the cemetery.
Now, President Trump wants a gold-garnished, massive arch, essentially a bloated memorial to himself, constructed near the cemetery. Opponents, including the Kennedy Family, say it would obstruct sight lines to the cemetery and cast a shadow over many graves, including JFK’s.
I lack expertise to opine on that. But the idea of Mr. Bone Spurs darkening the graves of a president murdered serving his country, a valorous war hero, and a soldier who sacrificed both his life and his identity, breaches the limits of propriety and toleration.
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.
