From the Washington Post Editorial Page:

Funeral Duty

By William Troy
Monday, May 26, 2008; A17



Throughout this war, the Army has maintained the practice of assigning a general officer to attend the funeral of every soldier who falls in service to our country. I've had this duty many times. The intensity of each funeral leaves me struggling to understand the enormousness of the sacrifice to which I have been a witness.

My first funeral is as clear in my mind as scenes from a familiar movie. Pfc. Christopher Kilpatrick died on June 20, 2005. I think everyone in town knew him. The residents of Columbus, Tex., filled every chair at the Knights of Columbus hall, and well-wishers lined the walls. His two sisters made a memorial video set to music. It was a moving tribute to the baby brother they fussed over; the toddler in cowboy boots; the youngster growing up hunting and fishing; the Eagle Scout; the basketball player letting a three-point shot fly; the kid with a big smile and the obligatory pickup truck.

I had to speak after that video, and I wasn't sure the words would come out. I blocked out the rest of the hall and tried to address his parents and sisters. I hope I did Christopher justice. We laid him to rest just outside of town. When I tried to tell my wife about it later, through my tears all I could say was, "Today was supposed to be his 19th birthday."

Every funeral is different. Each family copes in their own way. Our job is to oversee the military aspects of the services -- taps, the firing of three rifle volleys, the folding and presentation of the flag. You comfort where you can and bear witness to the loss that the family, friends and community have suffered.

I have attended 23 funerals in many different states and, to my surprise, have never encountered an angry parent -- only heartbroken ones who are intensely proud of their son or daughter. Grief is the crushing load these parents and spouses bear. Yet far more often than not they treat the military in attendance as family. They invite us to the receptions after the services, where they show us scrapbooks and introduce us to friends. They hug us and wish us a safe return to our units and families. They smile through their tears. I often get the feeling their sense of duty wills them through. I suspect that when the crowds have left and they are allowed to be alone, they collapse in grief and exhaustion.

During funerals, we typically read the tributes offered at the services conducted in theater. Nothing speaks to the families like the words of buddies and commanders. These people knew him or lived with her; fought beside and loved them. When a tank commander writes about the loss of his driver, you realize that a tank crew is a single entity -- a living, breathing organism. It, too, has lost an integral piece that made it whole. Voices from deployed units transcend the miles and speak with an eloquence I could never approach. I never try. I simply read what they wrote.

Though I haven't counted, I have not come across more than a handful of parents who were still together. Usually the separated parents support and comfort one another, but not always. I have shared a couple of funerals where the father left early in his son's life and returned only upon his death. At my second funeral, I was told that such an absent father was rumored to be around. We learned that the father had gone to the funeral home after visitation, but no one knew if he was going to show for the services. Because the awards and folded flag are presented to the next of kin, the military party had to know if he would be present. As we walked with the family to the service, I was told he was not present. Yet as I took my seat, there he was at the end of the family pew. He had slipped in at the last moment. When I presented the awards to him, he murmured a quiet thanks. At the grave site, as I watched him from a respectful distance, my heart broke for him as much as for the soldier's mother. He was saying his silent goodbye, and he was utterly alone.

My funeral duty has taught me a lot. The cynicism with which some people view politicians doesn't square with what I've seen. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Mike Gregoire, husband of the governor of Washington, attended just about every funeral I went to in their states. Absent the media or official entourages, they personally expressed condolences to grieving families. I've learned that the Patriot Guard Riders motorcycle club may seem unconventional, but its members' patriotism and sincerity are undeniable.

And I've learned that war most often claims the lives of young kids who go out on patrol day after day, night after night. They go because they are good soldiers led by good sergeants. They go with a singular purpose: to not let their buddies down. Each soldier we lay to rest shared that goal. They kept faith with their comrades, even in the face of danger and death. That is the most humbling lesson of all.

Maj. Gen. William Troy is vice director for force structure, resources and assessment in the Joint Staff. In 2006-07 he served as deputy commanding general of I Corps at Fort Lewis, Wash. In 2005-06, he was DCG (Support) of 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Tex.

Very touching article...I could feel my eyes welling up towards the end.

God bless all those past and present who currently serve and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Without you, we wouldn't be where we are today.

Thank you.

I just returned from a trip to Arlington, and I'm pleased to report that it was thronged. Some came on tour buses. Some walked. Some drove -- cars and motorcycles. The Rolling Thunder cyclists have been much in evidence this weekend. Some carried flowers, heading for a specific marker. Others were in tour groups. The overall mood was quiet, solemn, and courteous.

The Old Guard were pulling traffic duty, and closed off part of the Cemetery as the time approached for the President's address.

It was good to see so many mindful of the day.

PS: I counted over a dozen wreaths at the monument to the 101st.

This is one of my favorite poems and is in keeping with the day.

The Soldier
By Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven

The Military Channel has an all day marathon going honoring the troops of the past. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the goosebumps.

Military Channel

The WaPo has a respectful piece on local Memorial Day activities. Check out the link for some great photos.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...d=moreheadlines


'This Is Really the Only Place I Could Be Today'
Ceremonies, Parade and Rolling Thunder Honor the Fallen

By Jenna Johnson and Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 27, 2008; B01



In previous years, the families spent Memorial Day at barbecues and pool openings. Yesterday, they sat in folding chairs in the shade of a tent at a grassy cemetery dotted with small American flags to honor 10 loved ones with Maryland ties killed in the past year in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Right now, we'd be sitting at home, trying to enjoy the holiday," said Danny Craig of Earleville, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. His son, Cpl. Brandon M. Craig, 25, was killed in July in Iraq.

"We didn't know anything about the Army when Brandon joined," said Mary Jane Craig, who wore her son's dog tags. "It opens your eyes. It's a totally different ballgame. We learned so much about our country, Iraq, everything."

Memorial Day began as a way to recognize troops killed during the Civil War and was expanded after World War I to recognize service members killed in all U.S. wars. With the death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan increasing, the holiday is also a time to honor troops fighting and dying in current conflicts.

In the Washington region, several ceremonies and concerts, a parade and a rally by Rolling Thunder motorcyclists paid tribute to the fallen troops over the weekend.

Yesterday, President Bush joined visitors on a warm morning at Arlington National Cemetery, where he continued the annual tradition of laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Bush recognized all of the troops who died defending the United States and particularly those who lost their lives in the past year.

Wreaths also were laid at the Air Force and Navy memorials.

In the afternoon, 10 blocks of Constitution Avenue NW were closed for the National Memorial Day Parade, which featured marching bands and military units.

Military couple Mike and Kristen Nelson and their two children stood near the National Archives, watching the seemingly endless line of floats and balloons. The Arlington County couple spent most of last year apart: Mike was deployed to Iraq's heavily fortified Green Zone with the Army Corps of Engineers for six months. Five days after he returned home, Kristen learned that she would spend the next six months in Iraq with the Air Force. She returned home in January.

"We didn't plan it. It was unexpected," Mike Nelson said. "So this is the first time we've been able to come out here as a family."

Lance Cpl. Tom Pettit, 19, drove to the District yesterday morning from Marine Corps Base Quantico, where he is stationed. Standing with his hands on his hips, Pettit watched the high school color guards, old cars and colorful floats carrying celebrities such as Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund and actor Mickey Rooney, a World War II veteran and honorary parade marshal.

Commemorative coins and tokens jingled in Pettit's pocket. Spotting his uniform, several passersby had eagerly run up to him, patting him on the back and giving him a few mementos.

"People definitely notice the uniform," said Pettit, who is expected to be deployed to an undetermined location between December and February.

Not far from the parade route, hundreds of veterans and their supporters gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall to hear speakers and a reading of the fallen's names. Wreaths and other remembrances, including teddy bears, crosses, photographs and flowers, lined the base of the memorial.

Among the speakers was Army Capt. David Moses. Dragonflies and aircraft buzzed overhead as Moses told about being a "Lost Boy of Sudan," the name given to the tens of thousands of children who were displaced or orphaned during that country's civil war. They trekked hundreds of miles through treacherous desert, enduring hunger and evading wild animals and marauders, to reach safety.

After arriving in the United States as a refugee, Moses said, he worked at a slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls, S.D., attended college in Utah and realized his dream of joining the U.S. military.

"To me, it is a miracle that I am here today," he said. "And as I think back to that long and impossible journey from Africa to South Dakota to Utah to Iraq and now to this sacred wall, I am reminded of the lessons this journey has for all of us."

Visitors from across the country, including members of motorcycle clubs who descend on Washington every Memorial Day, listened in solemn silence to Moses's story. At a shady bench nearby, Sibel Bulay, 55, an American living in Turkey, approached Vietnam veteran Tony Sarica to express her regret for civil strife that seized the United States during that war.

Sarica, 61, belongs to the New Jersey chapter of the Vietnam Vets Motorcycle Club, where he goes by the name Scorpio. He sat stoically as Bulay spoke.

"I still feel really bad about how we treated the Vietnam vets when they came back, and whenever I meet one of these guys, I try to tell them how I feel," Bulay said. "This is really the only place I could be today."

During a morning ceremony at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Baltimore County, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D) told several hundred people that Memorial Day "today carries added significance" because more than 1,000 service members with ties to Maryland are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and nearly 100 have died there.

"Each of us owes them a debt of gratitude that we'll never be able to repay," said Brown, who served as an Army Reservist in Iraq.

Sheila Towns of Upper Marlboro attended the ceremony in honor of her husband, Staff Sgt. Robin L. Towns Sr., 52.

Towns joined the Army when he was 17 and the D.C. National Guard after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He was killed in October in Iraq after a makeshift bomb detonated near his Humvee.

Last week, Towns's unit returned from Iraq without him, but his wife attended the homecoming party last Tuesday night. Then there was a memorial ceremony in her husband's home state, Virginia, on Thursday night. On Saturday, she laid a bouquet of miniature roses on his grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

"I'm just taking it one day at a time," she said. "One day at a time."

Staff writer Derek Kravitz contributed to this report.