By Clyde Noel
A Side of Clyde
National cemeteries are like large books on a coffee table. They’re never opened and collect dust until someone becomes intrigued with the content. On a hot day last week I visited a national cemetery.
Driving up Interstate 280 to San Francisco, the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno is visible from the freeway. It’s a quiet place with Monterey Cypress trees and grave markers of thousands of veterans and their families.
. The government maintains 129 National Cemeteries throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, where more than 2.5 million people are buried in national cemeteries
In general, people don’t have a feeling or a reason to enter a national cemetery because they trespass on the stillness of life and intrude on the tears of mourners, many of those long gone. Most visitors are checking on the family genealogy.
Cemeteries are landmarks that collect the testimony of the dead - a silent chapter in the lives of many veterans, where we try to glean what we can from the grave markers.
Veteran’s graveyards remind me of the butterfly and the short time it has on earth. Their brief life flits away helplessly upward, over and over and then death comes unexpectedly. We share the earth with the butterfly, only we have a memory to contend with.
Walking along the headstones, the dates draw your attention: 1908, 1922, 1944, 1987, plus name and rank of officers and enlisted men who returned from the wars to live out their lives as civilians.
There are several headstones for veterans of the Spanish-American War, but most are those who served in World War I, in a section close to the pathway.
There are other sections of the cemetery where the headstones cite World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the recent Gulf War.
Put together, the dates in the cemetery suggest an intriguing picture. It seems the greatest longevity among those interred belong to World War I veterans. They seemed to have lived into the 1960s and ’70s. Sadly, many of the World War II veterans seemed to have died in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, but the wars were two generations apart.
Visiting national cemeteries you notice the sad detail that the headstones for the veterans of World War II, who only lived a few years or less after that war ended, only say “World War” on it. There is also an earlier engraving style, which leads me to believe they used up all the headstones before going to a new logo for later World War II veterans.
The saddest detail you notice are the veterans of different wars who live only a few years or less after their war ended. Why did certain veterans have so little time to enjoy what they fought for? They deserved a long life like the others.
There are personal stories behind each grave marker and on a peaceful afternoon you try to remember what they fought for, as you walk among their resting places
Each year, Americans welcome Memorial Day as part of a three-day weekend that initiates the summer season. Many do not take the time to consider the purpose of Memorial Day or its meaning to veterans.
When we consider the 2.5 million veterans buried in national cemeteries, and ask why Memorial Day still happens, we may answer: it celebrates and solemnly reaffirms from year to year our national feeling of enthusiasm and faith.
Clyde Noel is a longtime contributor to the Town Crier.
