I was not a tourist during my first visit to Arlington National Cemetery. I was a scared and shaken 16-year-old there to say goodbye to my father.

I have limited memory of being on that sacred hill. Only a couple scattered images: A huge tree nearby, barren on this day just after Christmas. The American flag being folded and handed to my devastated mother. The endless sea of crosses that spread over the hills and fields below us. I remember also the priest — where he came from I don’t know, since our family didn’t go to church. I have no idea what he said, just that he looked unshaven and his shirttail was sticking out. Hard as he may have tried, he didn’t give any comfort. That would have been nearly impossible. But he did give me a laugh, which was downright miraculous.

My father earned his spot in Arlington with his service in World War II. He’d been a musician, and one of the original Singing Sergeants — and if you believe some of the clues scattered about, also did some intelligence work. After the war, he joined the new Air Force Band and would continue to work with the band until his retirement. He actually served long enough to be joined by my brother Gus, a percussionist.

Which gives me my earliest memories of Arlington. When I was a little boy, I didn’t know what a funeral was.  Arlington wasn’t a hallowed ground populated with our nation’s finest. To me, it was just another place my brother played drums.  “What did you do today?” my father would ask him. “We did three funerals and a patriotic opening.” I had images of my rock-n-rolling sibling bashing away on his kit. But this engagement didn’t involve bashing. He was undertaking the most solemn task imaginable for a drummer. Playing the cadences that would help march our bravest to their eternal rest.

Gus and his colleagues played countless funerals at Arlington and in normal circumstances they would have played my dad’s. But that did not happen. It couldn’t. Dad had been a mentor and father figure to the young men in the USAF band and in their grief they could not bear to play.  Another of the sparse images I have from that day is their tears.

9/11

I would return to Arlington days after 9/11. Not only would it be a chance to visit my father’s grave, but the high hill offered a prime perch to get perspective on the damage done the Pentagon. The damage done to my sister’s workplace. She was in Air Force intelligence. “The apple,” my dad told her cryptically when she got her first intelligence gig, “doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

I could not be prepared for what I saw and experienced. The Pentagon is the biggest office building in the world. TV and photographs do not do its size justice. Therefore they don’t do the damage justice. The still-smoldering hole caused by Flight 11 was staggering.

Far more unsettling than the wreckage, even more unsettling than the notion that my sister had been in the terrorists’ sights, was the atmosphere at Arlington. A deep, palpable, cloud of grief surrounded us; a sorrow so thick I could feel it pushing against me as I walked. It was as if the thousands upon thousands of soldiers, sailors and Marines buried at Arlington had watched that plane come in over their heads, and were heartbroken at being unable to stop it.

I saw that heartbreak on my uncle, a World War II veteran. He had rushed to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor. Sixty year’s later, he was on my mother’s couch, weeping uncontrollably because he was now too old to rush down and join again. Such is the makeup of the Greatest Generation and today’s American soldier.

“You do have a role, Uncle Jule,” I said, “Last time, you went and fought. Now it’s this generation’s turn. Your task this time is to tell us ‘I’ve been here before, and it’s going to be alright.'”

My next visit to Arlington will not be as a tourist. It’ll be to help inter the ashes of my uncle, former Navy seaman Julius Pellegrino.

Memorial Day 2016

Seeing the photos of this new generation of The Old Guard laying flags on the graves at Arlington, I take in the sea of crosses, humbled with the understanding that when “God shed His grace on thee” He worked through a brotherhood of those who called on His name.

I know the names of only a handful who are buried on her rolling hills and fields. But I know that nearly all of the 400,000 buried there would, if they could, rise like Ezekiel’s Army to again defend this land in a time of need.

I know that countless buried there put their own blood to Jesus’ call that “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” I am grateful my brother and his brethren in the USAF band gave thousands their due honor.

I know one who I can personally attest was a living embodiment of Proverbs 20:7: “A righteous man who walks in his integrity — blessed are his sons after him!”

One of those sons can be heard with the rest of the United States Air Force Band and Singing Sergeants on an album thankfully preserved on YouTube. (Little Albert Jr. likely used the LP as a Frisbee or Hot Wheels race track.)

On Memorial Day 2016, this performance of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” lays bear the heart of the holiday: The sacrifice of our citizens and the strength of the Creator who breathed Liberty into our lungs.

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the
Sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.