Simple facts on simple stones are enough

by David Grand
September 14, 2005

At Arlington National Cemetery, which has almost four million visitors annually, there's about 300,000 veterans buried, among which are: 365 Medal of Honor recipients, 4 five-star generals and 2 five-star admirals, 1st Lt. Audie Murphy (most decorated soldier in World War 11), troops who rode with Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn, Col. "Pappy" Boyington (World War 11 USMC fighter pilot), Arctic explorer Rear Adm. Richard Byrd, and heavyweight boxing champion Tech. 5 Joe "Lewis" Barrow.

Uniquely, it's only the gravestones of all but a few of the 193 Iraq and Afghanistan dead that are embellished with the slogan-like names "Operation Enduring Freedom" or "Operation Iraqi Freedom," supposedly selected by the Pentagon to boost public support for those conflicts, a claim the Veterans Administration (VA) adamantly denies. "It's not, said VA officials, for a PR purpose, and that neither the Pentagon nor White House exerted any pressure to get families to approve adding the names of the operation." 

But a number of families complained that they were not contacted by the VA and told of the option they had of having that inscribed on their loved one's headstones at Arlington, or at any of the 121 national cemeteries the VA operates and maintains, or at state and private graveyards. As one father said of his reaction when he first saw the operation name on his son's tombstone, "I felt I was somewhat taken advantage of, for they didn't ask me, my wife or his widow for permission."

Former Sen. Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam and headed the VA under President Carter, called it "a little bit of glorified advertising and 'gilding the lily' on the Pentagon's part." And the owner of the granite company that has made gravestones for Arlington and other national cemeteries for decades said, "It seems brazen that that's put on stones, and it smacks of politics." (The tablets on the stones in Arlington, for those of other wars, only contain these simple facts: name, service, rank, date of birth, date of death, state, and religious symbol.)

And that's true for the twenty-four permanent American cemeteries on foreign soil, where there's presently 124,917 US war dead buried: 30,992 of WW 1, 93,245 of WW 11 and 750 of the Mexican War, maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, an independent agency. In Hamm, Luxembourg, General George Patton is buried among 8,411 soldiers who died in the Battle of the Bulge, his headstone simply reads, per his request: "George S. Patton, Jr., General Third Army, Dec. 21, 1945, Germany." To say anything more about "old blood and guts," who the German Chief of Staff called "the best general in the US Army,"  would be superfluous.

Personally, I can think of no higher tribute that can be paid to those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than the ritual their comrades-in-arms observe when one among them has fallen. There's no coffin, just their inverted rifle, helmet and boots displayed. The role is called, up to the name of the missing trooper, and repeated three times before taps is played. As one general, who had presided over 162 memorial services said, "It's an important emotional experience for the troops that closes the door and enables them to move on."